So I’m a little behind in continuing the sharing of our backyard orchard, but don’t worry, you’ll get them. Here, we actually get to planting our trees (well, this is back in December). After we heeled the trees in while we were spacing things out on the dirt, it was finally time to plant the trees. Ben marked the center of the hole with a short rebar segment, then with a string, he made his own protractor of sorts and created a 36″ diameter circle (by the way, he said, not needed, he’s just anal!). He used this as a guide to dig out his hole. Mind you, there were going to be multiple trees planted in one hole.

He dug out the hole to the depth of each of the individual the root systems and all the way around the circle he created. He grouped fruits together that would be most compatible with one another and that would also allow for successive ripening. I know, it’s a whole new language. Honestly, I don’t even understand it all. He tells me and I just nod and say, “Uh huh, uh huh, yeah.” (He spends a lot of time researching this; says he gets MOST of his guidance from the fine folks at Dave Wilson Nursery, their site and their “how-to videos“).

Then, he covered up the bare roots with more dirt and then chopped off the tree up to the height of his knee. It’s feels like a daring thing to do and the trees end up looking just like sticks in the ground, but that’s what you’re supposed to do, so that’s what we did.

We have 4 groupings of fruit trees, which means 4 holes, planted this way: fig trees with 4 varieties, nectarine trees with 4 varieties, cherry trees with 2 varieties, and pluot/peach with 4 varieties. Now, it’s about six months later from when these were done and they look a little bit more than just sticks in the ground now (sticks with some baby branches)… we even starting to see figs growing! We’re totally not pros and while Ben does most of the research that goes into planning this, we both love working in our backyard together!

Go back and see part 2 here…

If you’ve been following this blog for awhile now, then you know how eating well is important to us, which has led to us growing our own veggies and now our own fruits (with our mini backyard orchard culture). Well, we’ve been working on this garden for about 4 years now and it just dawned on us that we weren’t using a hose safe for drinking, thus not safe for watering our fruits and veggies! Our previous hose was not lead or phthalate free (probably filled with that junk!), so our water was running through those dangerous substances.

We garden because we want to feed our bodies and our kids with good things (and we really enjoy it) and here we were watering our garden with something that might not be so good. It was such an oh-my-goodness-we’re-such-dingbats moment. Ben immediately did some research (he researches everything!) and ended up finding a hose that is safe for drinking (and lead and phthalate free), therefore safe to use for our fruits and veggies. He ordered this Colorite Element hose, this Dramm sprayer, and this Dramm valve shut off to go along with it, and we like them all so far! Ben likes it so much that he will now drink the water from the hose when we’re outside working on the garden.

If you’re wondering, this isn’t a sponsored post (I’d tell you if it was), nor contain any affiliated links, but I just wanted to share it in case it might be an oversight on your part too. It’s something we just honestly overlooked and we want to be confident that we’re feeding our fruits and veggies with good things because those same fruits and veggies feed our family. We’re glad we finally got our hose on the right track.

P.S. If you look on the sidebar, where the categories are (right under our photobooth picture), I now have a category up for gardening! It’s a big part of what we do together as a family, so I thought it was about time it got it’s own section. Thanks Joy for helping put that up!

This was our first time growing fennel. Ours didn’t grow too big, but they were still yummy and I used all of it in one dish, so there was that. It grew and we ate it, end of story. We love fennel! It’s also good roasted with carrots… yummy! Do you guys like fennel?

P.S. My hearts go out to those in Boston. This pain (and evil) is so real and I’m praying for healing for the hearts and bodies of all those affected. It’s so sad that things like this happen.

We’re uprooting our winter garden in preparation for our summer one and look at all these pretty carrots we got! Some of them came out pretty funny looking too. The girls were having a riot with all the funny shaped ones. Of course, I think the coolest part are our radishes because I have never seen a black radish before.

We honestly didn’t upkeep with our winter garden as much because the focus has been on getting the mini orchard started. It is definitely work to maintain and grow your own fruit and veggie garden, which makes me appreciate the farmers out there who help bring the farm to our table. We love growing our own food, but it does take time and money to do so. It’s definitely worth it though. I love being able to go to our backyard and pick out some things to eat. It’s such a good feeling.

We are seriously working on this garden of ours every weekend. There’s really no rest. We’ve got a ton of (mostly house) projects going on at the same time and it seems there hasn’t been much time for play. Technically though, we love gardening, so though it’s work, it’s also play for us. It’s totally Ben’s hobby (We actually like doing it together, but he’s the one that invests all the time and research into it, I just do as I’m told) and thankfully when we’re outside working in the yard, the girls love joining us. It’s been especially fun for them lately since we’ve made the backyard much more relaxing for them.

It’s that time of year again when we start shopping for tomato plants. Typically, Ben grows over 20 varieties, but he’s telling me this year, he will probably only go with about 15. Though, if it’s anything like the orchard we’ve been working on, the tomato number will jump right back up to 20 soon enough. Normally, he orders his grafted tomatoes online, but this year he’s mostly getting them from local nurseries. This past weekend we went to our favorite one, Roger’s Gardens, and he came home with a few tomato plants and I got some edible lavender plants and caladium.

The girls are such troopers (we were there for 2 hours!) and they like looking at all the plants. Plus, this particular nursery is a bit fancy and there are a lot of little spots for them to ooh and ahh over. I’m thankful Ben is totally into gardening because of it we get lots of fresh fruits and veggies and a pretty yard!

on me: top and bottom, thrifted. shoes, c/o modcloth. the girls: dresses, misha lulu. leggings on true and brave, c/o hello apparel. moccs on glow, c/o freshly picked.

We, more like Ben, mostly planted bare root trees for our backyard orchard. Not only that, he chose mini or dwarf sized, so that we would be able to plant multiple trees in one hole following the Dave Wilson style of backyard orchard cultures. The ones pictured here aren’t even all the trees Ben has planted. This was done back in January (I’m slow in blogging this), some of them even have leaves growing now and are starting to look like more than just sticks in the ground.

Since we didn’t plant the trees in the ground right away, Ben decided to heel-in the trees. This is done to help the trees maintain dormancy for a longer period of time and to protect it from ground frost. We left it like this for several days until he had more time to actually dig the holes for the trees.

It’s pretty crazy how much goes into planning this out. Ben has spent countless hours reading and researching about the best way to do this. We laugh about this, but most things he reads recommend starting small. I don’t think Ben really heeded that advice and it seems his motto is “Go big or go home.” I definitely think having about 30 trees is go big. We’re totally learning every season about how to do something better and what we did wrong. Even with all the research he’s done, there’s always a way to improve. Next post, I will list out everything we’re planting, but since Ben’s the one in the know of all of that, he’ll probably have to write the next post. I’d bug him about it now, but he’s downstairs working on a surprise. I like surprises, so I don’t want to disturb him.

Have any of you heeled-in bare root trees before? This is totally something new to me, so I was totally intrigued when Ben was doing it. Read part 1 of how our backyard orchard culture started.