Monday, April 22, 2013

Transplanting Fruit Trees or Alternatively, Never Again.

Behind my second only-for-storage mobile home there are two cherry trees. Oh wait hold on, what I really meant was behind my second mobile home there were only two cherry trees. Now there are many. How we got from one to a shit ton was that, when you stop mowing the lawn, apparently the cherry trees take that as in invitation to spread motherfucking everywhere.

Instead of looking at this as an unfortunate event, we said, hey free cherry trees.

So, in a moment of optimism so foolish I am kinda surprised we went for it, we decided to transplant the trees into buckets. So that we could then move them out of the yard and into the orchard at our leisure.

Ha ha ha.

So armed with shovels and a wheelbarrow we went out behind the other mobile home and began to dig up trees. Now, one of things about trees that are all growing together out of one master tree is that the roots will be one giant mess. But if you cut off too much root the tree won't make it and then you will be a tree murderer and then you will never be able to go into the woods again for fear of angry Ents.

Also, and I not sure I have really mentioned this enough, the soil is really rocky. Did I say really rocky? I meant like super totally a lot sweet Jesus god where are these stones coming from rocky. So what started out as a simple concept, dig in a wide circle around the tree and then pry up to force the root ball out of the ground became a super fun full sun adventure.

First off, I would only ever make it about a quarter of the way around the tree, before I hit a rock. Then I would move to another side and try that, only to hit another rock. Then I would have the choice of making the circle wider or smaller to avoid it, if it could be avoided, and then I would fuck it all up and kill too many of the roots and then Scott would glare at me because he is really good with plants and all the trees he dug up were perfect and alive and shit.

So after murdering a few I got the hang of it.

And by got the hang of it I mean I was so paranoid that I would dig an extra wide perimeter and then separate out the roots by hand. Which of course was just the fastest method ever. However even with my crazy paranoia about my unintentional plant murder, we started to run out of tree tubs. So then Scott went to the shed and got more tree tubs. And then we ran out again and he went and got all the tree tubs.

Which is how we ended up with 25 trees.

Which is, for those of you not following along well at home, a lot of motherfucking trees.

So then we were all like, where the fuck are we going to put these? In the end we ended up setting the tubs right outside the garden. Which was up hill from where we were working because of course it was because life is a dick like that. So in end we just lined them up outside the fence and Scott watered them and petted them or whatever it is one does with plants and then I went inside to wash my hands and discovered I had sunburn all over my torso. Again.

So now wearing my shirt hurts and the garden looks like a Chia Pet and I am dead tired but it's all worth it because now we have more cherry trees that are probably about to die.

Did I say that? I mean that they are going to live forever and we will love them and they will be the happiest trees ever.

Yes. Ha ha ha haa. That is what I meant.

Totally.

Also, Ent's aren't real, right? I mean hypnotically speaking, if I just accidentally killed a bunch of fruit trees and then said that the ones we moved are going to die, they wouldn't come to my house and kill me right?

Right?

RIGHT?

Oh boy.




4 comments:

  1. So many treessssss.
    y'all are gonna have so much fruit once those get going - do you have plans for them besides just making sure neither you or Scott EVER gets scurvy?

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    1. Canning. So yes we will never have scurvy. Although keep in mine, many of the trees will probably die and also I have never gotten more then one cherry off of the parent trees.(Damn birds)

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  2. I love fruit trees! They're so multipurposeful! Shade and food? Can't go wrong there! I would love to have cherry trees. We've got a full grown sour orange and a baby lime tree. My lime tree, aptly named Limey (because I've decided he's a British sailor) is already full of buds!

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  3. I've never been able to do that neat circle root ball thing either. No matter how many times I watch my dad do it - effortlessly.

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