As the leaves begin to fall from our deciduous fruit trees, a few timely jobs rise to the surface.
Time to Mulch
Nature shows us its time to mulch! Leave the leaves where they lay, topping them up with a lovely woody mixture – both will excite beneficial fungi, key players in balanced nutrition.
You really don’t need to put your back out (and disturb the soil kingdom) by digging the grass out. Just lay cardboard or newspaper around the base of the tree and cover with mulch. Should your tree roots be beneath a living mulch of comfrey you can skip this job – the comfrey’s got it covered.
A Biological Super Spray
Spray your trees with a living-biological-brew when about half to all the leaves have fallen – all those little openings make this a prime moment. An especially good idea if fungal disease has been an issue. Make a biological brew and spray generously – bark, limbs, ground beneath, the lot.
You’re building (as in “Rome wasn’t built in a day” type building), an army here. A crew of beneficial organisms to out-manoeuvre and out-compete detrimental fungi and bacteria, and speed decomposition so that leaf litter and fruit mummies disappear by spring.
Read my healthy fruit tree game plan for an overview on how to build a strong hearty orchard without spraying fungicides (copper and lime sulfur).
Plant new trees
Yippee do – deciduous fruit tree/ cane and vine planting time is upon us. I hope in all the excitement of new trees, you have the basics covered – made a harvest calendar, matched up pollinators, matched the tree to the right environment and located your tree/s with enough space in mind.
Working out fruit tree spacings is all about finding the goldilocks moment.
- Give more space to cool/ wet/ still environments than hot/ dry/ breezy ones.
- Plant trees as close as possible to make the most of your land, but don’t get too close that tree health suffers or access is blocked. Fruit trees need light and airflow and the gardener needs comfortable working room.
- Rootstock is the final part of the puzzle.
As for those crazy vines/ canes – how are you going to support them? Well is my hope.
Plant companions
Divide and plant out orchard companions to keep building diversity. Make up your own personalised guild by choosing your favourite + most useful plants.
- Deep rooting companions like comfrey, chicory, horseradish, fennel, parsnip, parsley, globe artichoke, borage or dandelion to recycle nutrients, open clay and hold sand – they’re value is enormous.
- Plenty of herbs and flowers to discourage pests, to feed beneficial insects and bring below ground diversity for a larger pool of biological life
- Nitrogen fixers provide an ongoing nutrient exchange for free! You dont need loads, just dotted about. Grow clovers and or legumes on your orchard floor or nitrogen fixing shrubs/ trees throughout or on the border.
Prune deciduous fruit trees
Spend some time in your orchard doing a pre-prune ponder. Imagine the handsome look of your trees after pruning – nicely spaced branches that allow light to penetrate + air to flow, and a shape that’s balanced and strong enough to hold a crop in the blast of a gale.
Achieving this doesn’t take lots of wood removal – less really is more! Hard pruning creates stress and induces disease. Rather than go hard, be targeted.
Knowing what you’re creating before you cut results in a far better prune than head down, start chopping. Please banish that dreadful word ‘hack’ from your vocabulary. Imagine a hairdresser saying “I’ll just have a hack at it”. You’d run a mile.