If you look carefully through all the goldenrod in the wildflower area (that’s no longer there!) you can see a fenced plant behind it. There’ supposed to be a peach tree there. But the weeds have grown as high as the tree, and the comfrey went wild and is half as high and full of flower stalks.
Once we’d finished the Big garden, weeding the little trees was the next job. For most of them I was able to squeeze my hand through the wire and pull out the weeds by the roots. This one, we had to take the cage off to do. There was an enormous ragweed in there. And we had to take off most of the comfrey’s flower stalks to get the cage off.
Most of the little trees have done really well. Here are photos of what some of them were like in May, a month after being planted, and now.
1. North Star cherry May 2020 on left, August 2020 on right
This was the substitution cherry. I don’t know a lot about it except it is supposed to be hardy here. In May it only had a few leaves and some flowers. Over the summer, it grew on the top and the bottom, but not in the middle. It has almost grown out the top of the 4’ high cage.
2. York elderberry May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
I am extremely impressed by the York elderberries. This one is the very best, by far, of all the trees. In May it had been doing well with a few large leaves. It’s now got lots of clusters of green berries and is at least 3’ higher than its 3’ high cage.
3. Goodbarn elderberry, top May, bottom August 2020
The Goodbarn elderberries did ok, but far from impressive. They are still very low. This one has more leaves and branches than the other Goodbarn and one or 2 clumps of berries.
4. Allegheny serviceberry May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
The serviceberry has done the least of all the trees. I just hope it is busy making a root system instead of growing. You can see the leaves are a bit yellowish also. It had exactly the same planting as all the others.
May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
This is the comfrey planted with the serviceberry. It doesn’t look so good either. I know there’s not contaminates from the mulch, as this was all our own mulch from the trees we took down.
5. Adams elderberry May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
This elderberry has done very well also. You can see it was pretty short in May with small leaves. It is now at least 2’, if not 3’, above the 3’ high cage. It has several clumps of green berries.
6. Lapins cherry May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
The Lapins cherry seemed to have a setback in late June into July. We’ve been in drought conditions all summer, but they were watered about every 3 days with driphoses. It seemed to recover and is now about 18” above its 4’ high cage.
May 2020 top, August 2020 bottom
This comfrey planted with the Lapins cherry had a rough start. It got covered with 8” of mulch for a couple weeks. But it has recovered well and is now flowering.
7. Adams elderberry May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
Another Adams elderberry, it’s not doing quite as well as the first one but still doing very well. It had a couple clumps of nearly ripe berries, but one got knocked off during weeding. The broilers thought they were wonderful!
8. Goodbarn elderberry May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
This Goodbarn elderberry has done the poorest of all the elderberries. It has no berries at all. I hope it will survive the winter and do better next year.
9. Contender peach May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
This peach has done pretty well. It has a lot of leaves and has filled out nicely. It was the tree in the first picture, covered in weeds. Even so, it has grown over the top of its 6’ cage.
May 2020 top, August 2020 bottom
The Contender peach’s comfrey had grown to about 4’ high and had about 10 flower stalks, they were woven into the wire of the cage, so we had to cut them to get the cage off for weeding. This one of the comfreys has done the best.
10. York elderberry May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
This second York elderberry is giving the first one a run for its money! It has a lot of berry clusters, some of them ripening. It’s amazing how much these newly planted trees grew in just 4 months!
11. Juneberry May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
The Juneberry got off to a great start, had a few berries (which the birds got before I could), and really hasn’t done much since then. It did grow over the top of its 3’ cage. And there seems to be another one coming up in the lower left. So hopefully it will go really well next year.
12. Sugar maple May 2020 on right, August 2020 on left
The sugar maple is on top of the slope near the house. It never got mulched until early July. It has a few leaves, some of which are bug chewed. I hope it really gets going next year.
Eastern most forsythia May 2020, 3 western most forsythias August 2020
The forsythias did not have driphoses and never got watered this summer. They have not done much since the spring as a result. They were partially mulched, but we never got back to finishing that job. Hopefully they will survive the winter and begin growing next year.
That’s the little trees at 4 months in the ground, from bare root planting in April. I’m pretty pleased with them.
In the autumn, we will weed them again, put on the protective sleeves to keep the rodents from chewing the trunks, and hopefully put up burlap for wind protection during the winter.
Some day you'll have a bountiful orchard. I see no signs of pest damage on any of them. You must have chosen wisely on the varieties to plant for your area.
I selected the most hardy, primarily. But we will see....
Great before and after photos. I'm not so knowledgeable about types of berries but I guess they each have different tastes and flavors. Are these also to be fed to your chickens on winter?
The elderberry is to make elderberry juice. I use this as an immune system booster.
That's good growth from the trees over the summer.
Why do you plant comfrey with the trees?
Comfrey is a bio-dynamic accumulator. In other words, it draws up nutrients from blow and makes them available to nearby plants.
Ah, that makes sense then.