Planting Bare Root Fruit Trees

March 24, 3025

For some reason, Bruce thought we’d take it easy on Sunday (March 23) after “An Evening of Fire and Smoke” on Saturday.

We did sleep in a bit. I woke Bruce up to make sure he was in time for the family Zoom call.

Once Bruce was done with the Zoom call, I told him I wanted to plant the fruit trees and the two blueberries.

Bruce carried out the pot with the heeled in fruit trees from the garage to the garden area. I had him put the fruit trees in the half barrels with rain water, while I dug the rest of the holes for the fruit trees. I needed to allow the roots to rehydrate before planting them. I finished digging the second hole and dug out three more holes.

I showed Bruce the general area I wanted to plant the blueberries. He measured 30 feet from the large pine to find the starting point. The two blueberries were planted 6 feet apart.

I was exhausted from digging the holes. I decided to let the fruit trees soak overnight until Monday.

On the way back to the house, I saw this carpenter bee on the white and pink hyacinths.

Last night, we had thunderstorms. We got some additional rainwater in the buckets and half barrels.

Today, (Monday, March 24) I went with Bruce to Florence, AL while he got his blood drawn for his physical. Afterwards, we got breakfast out. We went shopping for tomatoes and pepper plants since I didn’t get my tomato and pepper seeds started early. I will be direct sowing some tomato seeds later.

We went to another nursery in Muscle Shoals, AL. We bought six more blueberries and a couple of figs.

We unloaded the truck, caring the blueberry plant containers in the wagon to the back pasture. The figs were placed on the south side of the house. I am going to look up more information on planting figs before actually planting them.

I placed the tomato and pepper plants on the back step to start hardening them off.

I gathered the items needed for planting the bare rooted trees and put them in the wagon. (Shovel, gloves, stakes, 1/2 inch wire mesh, aviation snips, wire and garden rake)

I planted the bare rooted fruit trees while Bruce measured out a circle to plant the blueberries. We are going to have a small seating area in center of the blueberry circle.

I took a break after planting two apple trees. Bruce wanted help making sure the blueberries circle measurements were correct.

After getting the blueberry measurements completed and marked with flags, Bruce hooked the leave sweeper to the mower and swept up leaf piles formed from the flood.

I had him dump the leaves in the back pasture, near the fruit trees. I want to use the leaves for sheet mulching around the fruit trees.

I continued planting the rest of the trees. I put a large stick in with the fruit trees to attach a wire circle to. The wire circle is to protect the trees from animals. After the trees were planted, I cut the wire with aviation snips and attached it to the sticks.

In the process of attaching wire to the sticks, I managed to sit in an ant bed. It was a small ant bed and I didn’t see it. Thankfully, it wasn’t a fire ant mound. The ants did bite. I had some ants bite me on my arms and lower back. Even after I thought I had all the ants off of me, I got bitten a couple more times.

I gathered up the tools and put them in the wagon. As I headed back to the barn to put away the tools, I noticed this clump of wild pansies in the back pasture. In some spots, the colors of the deep purple of the naturalized violets and the light purple of the wild pansies complement each other.

I was exhausted from the tree planting and very hungry. After getting washed up, we ate leftover BBQ. It was still sooo good. We also had some hummingbird cake for dessert. Bruce keeps telling me how much he loves the cake.

I brought the tomato and pepper plants inside for the night.