Along part of our boundary fence (about 50m) and edge of our main orchard we planted a row of karo pittosporum trees which were doing quite nicely until next door's cow (cheeky thing is hiding behind the netting in this photo!) decided to munch them. So yesterday we got busy and put up some wind cloth. In hindsight, we should have done this from the very beginning, or perhaps planted the trees further away from the fence but.......ah well, it's all a learning curve! Anyhow, we got about just over 1/3 of the length done yesterday, ran out of clips to do any more, but already it looks heaps better and should help the trees recover. It will also provide a nice bit of shelter for the orchard, and for new trees to come (including more karos which we need to fill in the gaps where some have died).
The fruit trees are doing OK, some of the more established apple trees are producing fruit (although not ripe as yet). This is a double grafted tree with both red and golden delicious.
We still have a lot of room left for more trees so will be thinking about that for this winter (planting time).
When we had the really big flood a couple years back, it shorted out our electric fence and our cows got out. We weren't living on our block then and the devestation two large steers did in the time it took before we could get out and check them (3 or 4 days) was heart rending. But apart from the little trees that they pulled out by the roots, 90% of the big ones came back.
ReplyDeleteI'm coveting your orchard - looking great!
Yes indeed, they'll do some damage given half a chance!
ReplyDeleteWe're looking forward to all the fruit in years to come.