Someday Isle - Property tour

[Someday isle]

Nice amount of sunlight in there. It should grow pretty green for you. Have any trees picked out for stands yet ??

I do - I actually have a stand at the entrance to the plot already. I have created a little funnel with the trees I cut down to direct them within 20 yards of that stand. Then on the south side of the plot I have a stand overlooking one of my water holes about fifty yards from the new plot. I actually took our first deer from this property out of that stand last year. So I really kind of picked this spot for the plot with the combination of how it laid and how it set up with two existing stand locations. That’s one of the things I learned from reading other’s posts on this website actually.

 

[Someday isle]

Really working on getting ready for my fruit trees. If all goes according to plan they should ship tomorrow and arrive on Friday. If the weather holds I hope to get them all in on Saturday. I’ve got the 10 tree pear package coming from The Wildlife Group. I opened up the 1/4 acre food plot we put in last year and there will be six trees in that one. Two will go in a Little spot we call the hidey hole corner and two more on a wide section of food plot trail leading from the hidey hole corner towards a spot we call the old feeder plot. It’s about 1/3 of an acre area that we’re contunuing to open up a little more this summer. Lots to do there yet. We’re clearing 100% by hand so our bigger stumps just have to stay for now and we work around them. I dug all ten holes today. I put a trash bag down next to each spot and put the dirt from the holes on the trash bag. All of these areas had the basic LC mix in them last year and will likely do it the same way this year. I’ll just work around the trees and their cages. I plan on tubing and caging all the trees with weed mats. I’m going back down Wednesday to pre-build the cages.

Here’s a few pics for fun.

 

[Someday isle]

Continuing the process of prepping for my fruit trees. Today I took 10 five gallon buckets of water out to the plots, got my cages built and and posts ready. The trees are set to arrive tomorrow. We’re expectung rain all day Friday so my brother in law and I will go out Saturday and plant the trees. I took some pictures of today’s process. I had three 50 foot rolls of five foot high wire fencing. There was some bonus fencing in one of them. I cut 12.5 foot sections that will give me four foot diameter cages. One of the rolls had about 65 feet of wire in it.

 

[Someday isle]

Rather than use plastic zip ties I bought a fifty foot roll of 14 gauge solid wire and cut eight inch length sections to serve as wire ties. I figure it’ll be easier to open the cages for maintenance as time goes by.

 

[Bill]

Looks good. I wish I was smart enough to plan that far ahead. I usually just start a project and hope for the best.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Someday - You won't be sorry you chose 14 ga. copper insulated wire. That's what I use. It won't corrode, and is easy to twist with just your fingers. All of mine work just as well as the day they went on the cages ........ and tags !!

 

[Someday isle]

Nice cool morning today. My brother in law went out with me to plant my fruit trees. I had everything prepped so it only took us two hours to plant all 10 pear trees. I did have a couple concerns but I went ahead like I knew what I was doing anyway. The first concern was overwatering. We’ve had drought conditions all winter but the last few weeks that’s really changed. It’s been very wet and it’s really muddy. I had taken a five gallon bucket of water out for each tree to use at planting. Even though it was muddy I filled the hole half full with dirt after putting the tree in to the right height then I poured in half a bucket of the water. Then I finished filling the hole and added the rest of the bucket. I figured that would help keep air pockets out of the hole and even though I was concerned about overwatering I don’t feel like I could over water at planting time even though the ground is very saturated.

 

[Someday isle]

My second concern was the the trees had already leafed out. I figure if that was a big concern they would have told me about it when they shipped them. We’re past the chance of any real extreme cold in our area at this point. We’ll certainly still have some frost but it is what it is at this point. I pinched off most of the leaves before I put the tree tubes over them anyway. I’m hoping that will help put most of the energy into vertical growth if I’m understanding the process right. All of the roots looked like they’d been pruned before shipping and some of the trees did. I cut back the tips of the trees that looked like they didn’t have fresh pruning at shipping. I don’t know why some would be and some wouldn’t but oh well. Here’s what they looked like after planting but before I pinched off all the little leaves up and down the whip.

 

[Someday isle]

Each tree got a five foot plantra tree tube, a stake, a weed mat, and a five foot tall cage four feet in diameter (12.5 feet in length). Each cage got two five foot stakes. I thought about using three or four stakes but I think two will be sufficient. My expectations are realistic. It’s my first attempt at fruit trees so if I get a fifty percent survival rate I’ll be satisfied and will adapt my plan as things progress. I will say that I’m really glad I decided to cage as well as tube and use the weed mats. I’d considered just caging them but I feel better about my decision after finishing the work. I’m really pleased with the weed mats. They just about completely fill the four foot diameter cage, they seem very well made and they even came with the big ground staples to hold them in place.

 

[Someday isle]

This is the spot that we call Austin’s Corner. It’s a spot that my son was drawn to right away when we bought the property. At the time there was just an old overgrown logging road here. Initially we cleared the road and planted an LC mix on it. It’s where Austin harvested his first deer last year. Last year we cleared the area further and turned it into a 1/4 acre food plot. This year we cleared Out a few trees that were still in the plot and we put six of the pear trees in this spot. It’s been a great spot so far. We’ve harvested a deer each year here. While obviously there are some stump issues I think it’s turned into a nice little harvest plot area. In a few years the pears should help even further. The pears are planted between 18 and 21 feet apart depending on where the stumps were.

 

[Someday isle]

This is a spot we call the Hidey Hole Corner. It’s a small heart shaped spot that will be all clover moving forward. It’s attached to the food plot trail that runs between Austin’s Corner and 1/3 acre plot we built last year called The Old Feeder plot. While there’s only two trees here they’re very close to the other two trees.

 

[Someday isle]

The last two trees got planted on this trail leading to The Old Feeder Plot. This is a pretty rocky area but hopefully they’ll grow. If I was a farmer I’d be concerned about all the rocks but I’m a food plotter and I figure there are oak and hickory trees growing here without any help from me so hopefully I can get these to survive too.

 

[Someday isle]

This picture is the same two trees on the food plot trail. It’s just taken from the other side of the trees. I added this picture to show two things. First, it shows the proximity of these two trees to the trees in The Hidey Hole Corner. It’s maybe 35 or 40 feet between to two sets of trees. Second, if you look at the tree tube in the closeup you’ll see the slope of the ground in this area. The tree tube is vertical but the cage level with the slope. Hopefully between the stake and the tree tube this tree will grow straight.

 

[Someday isle]

Well that’s it for now. I learned a lot in this process and feel like I’ve given them the best chance at a good start. Time will tell. I think my biggest challenge will be keeping them watered through the summer. We tend to get hot, dry summers here so my plan is to make sure they each get a five gallon bucket of water once a week as the summer weather arrives. I’d like to come up with about a fifty gallon water tank that I can strap to my four wheeler for watering purposes. My next project is a little frost seeding, loosening my ratchet straps for the spring and summer so my ladder stands don’t get too tight on the growing trees, and then putting my cameras back out.

 

[Apple Junkie]

You sure put enough thought and energy into this orchard, well done!! I think you will find it rewarding to see your trees grow and produce.

I'll be curious how the tubes work out for you. The few times I have tried them, everything grew in them except the trees!

 

[H20fwler]

Getting your cages pre made saves a bunch of time....well done!
They look great, I don't think you have any worries with them already starting to leaf. The tubes will protect them some from frost and pears are tough.

 

[Someday isle]

It’s raining pretty heavy again here today. I don’t work until this afternoon so I went to the local Hobby Lobby looking for some aluminum stock to cut into tags for the purpose of marking my trees. I know the little plastic name tags that came with the trees won’t last long and I wanted something more permanent. I ended up finding some aluminum stock in their jewelry department that was perfect for what I wanted to do. I drilled holes in the ends and will just wire tie them to the cages next time I go out. I bought an $11 metal stamp kit and spent a few minutes making tags. I am neither a machinist or an artist so they’re not pretty but they’ll work. I don’t think my trees or my deer will care how they look. Here’s the finished product.

 

[j-bird]

I like your tags. I need to do something like this as I have 6 trees coming that I need to mark. I didn't mark the others and kick myself for it. Something to consider is adding some gravel to cover the weed barrier (drive way or even pea-gravel will work fine). It will allow water to pass and hold your weed barrier down better and not promote critters. Just a suggestion. I like the idea of the wire vs zip ties as well. With all the precautions you have taken you should do just fine. I tend to water my trees once they show signs of stress their first summer in the ground and they tend to do fine beyond that. For watering I use a 5 gallon bucket with a few small holes in the bottom of it. Place the bucket inside the cage and leave it and then I use my 3 point sprayer as a water truck to fill the buckets.....the small holes allow the water to trickle out and soak better into the soil vs run-off. Hopefully in a few years you will have some nice fruit to show everyone!

 

[Native Hunter]

Very impressive work.

You have been a busy man and doing things right. When I first looked at the pics of your wire I thought it was 4 feet but then saw where you said it was 5 feet. 4 feet will stop rubbing but not browsing. I use some 4 feet wire occasionally when protecting a tree already high enough to avoid browsing the top, but use 5 feet on everything else.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Someday isle]

I got out again this morning to get some work done. I put the tags on my pear trees. Overseeded a mix of Kopu 2 and Ladino on a couple of my trails that I’m hoping to convert to full time clover this year. I also put my cameras back out. I had taken them down at the end of the year. One of them isn’t acting right, and hasn’t been, so I may need to replace that one. Things have really started to green up. We have a little snow and a couple frost days in the forecast over the next week but after that we’re probaly done with frost and temps below freezing. Our last frost is typically mid April. I don’t see as much baby clover from my LC mix from last fall. We had a little moisture right at planting but then drought for several weeks and I wonder how much survived.