Time for Gravel 2

Part 1 of this saga was summer 2022, the second part of the orchard now has been done.  And with a thicker layer of gravel. You need a layer of about 5 cm, or walking over it will expose the underlying geotextile. For dogs running around you might need more. For a running around Tex there is not enough gravel in the world.

This will be it, we think. 

new stitch

Héél de boomgaard is nu bedekt met grind. 

Héél de boomgaard? 

Nee! Een onverzettelijk klein hoekje biedt koppig weerstand!

The whole orchard is now covered with gravel.

The whole orchard?

No! An unyielding little corner stubbornly resists!

Veni, vidi, vici!

Time for Gravel 1

We're fed up with the very good soil in our orchard. The nasty weeds love it far too much, especially the ones with the nasty prickly seeds that stick to dog paws. A few container bags of the stuff each year, followed by meter high Malva. Pretty pink flowers, but indestructable. 

We don't do RoundUp, so it's geotextile + gravel, after engineer De Waal managed to remove ALL weeds. By hand.  Ramblizo has rolls of geotextile that are 4 meters wide, which reduces the number of seams. We still have sewn more than 100 meters I think. With a different stitch later.

This is the first half of the orchard, done summer 2022.

Neatly overlapped and sewn.

Arrival of 10 bags (4 more later)

Tex being helpful, or not

Ready!

AAAARGHHH!

Tangerines: bad things come in trees too

In the distant past there were very ancient tangerine (mandarine) trees here, about 25-30 cm diameter. For some reason they were chopped down. What happens then is that new branches will sprout from the old stump, and in years form trees like the ones we have: sort of three trunks from one stem, at an angle of ca 60º. Not nice looking trees, as you can see below.

I've pruned one almost 2 years ago to see if it improves. No.

So, new plan is to remove 2 of the 3 trunks, and see what happens. Tried with 3 trees, and the result doesn't look half bad, I think. Will "treat" the other 6-7 trees too, but will ask someone with a chain saw, as this is very hard work.

Lemons and stones

Planting spree. Well, lemons. Five two-color variegated lemon trees. Nice ones! These lemons are pink on the inside. And a "sweet lime", whatever that is. And a pink grapefruit, and a regular lime.

Now, can you spot what they all have in common?

Mangos

The spot next to the water tunnel and the garage is where the 3 riego (irrigation) water pipes issue their water into the irrigation channels. They're not too careful with that, and the channels leak, so it's always quite wet there. And nice and green. Apparently mango trees use a lot of water, so that's the spot. Bought two, 16€, var "Sensacion". Well, that sounds promising.

Mango nr. 1 (var "Especiosa")

Mango nr. 2

Original planting hole of mango nr. 1

That is because I underestimated how big a mango can grow. They can, apparently, grow 10-12 m in size. Well, in the tropics. To be sure I dug up mango nr.1 again and replanted it a few meters further on.

Garden Steps

Since the floods the ramp up to the garden was less than great. There were some concrete blocks lying around. Why not use those to make some steps up to the orchard?

Jacarandas and the Hollandsche Waterlinie

6 Jacaranda's and a Delonix Regia (Flamboyant, Poinciana), and 4 bougainvilleas need planting. The holes are basically already dug by machine (thanks Antonio). The soil dug out needs to go back into the holes, mixed with compost and fertilizer. After the rains that is hard work. (Again! Who's a pensioner then? Well?)

A bit of a challenge is to initially water 7 big holes, and not resort to watering cans. Well, we have two quite long hoses, but we need about 70 meters here. Lucky there are three lengths of black plastic irrigation tubing. They can be interconnected using bits of the bigger blue hoses, while the blue hose fits the regular Gardena. All in all I can just about reach the last planting hole. Which is rather funny, as that is about 10 meters from the balsa, where the water is actually from:

Last planting hole, with a view on the balsa.

Here is a movie of the Hollandsche Waterlinie, so you have an idea:

As we'll have a lot of wind coming days I extended the supporting bamboo sticks. Else the tops of the young trees are a meter above the end of their stick, and will possibly snap.

Palmerìa

Jo and Pat, our neighbours, have many seedlings of these palms in their garden. Usually right next to a fruit tree (water!), and wanted to get rid of them. We have planted about 10. Quite nice size, too, some up to 2 meters high, other no more than 50 cm. Greens the place immediately. Very nice.