222choppy: The First Plant.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

The First Plant.

Many people thought we were crazy when our first load of baby Macadamia trees arrived in early February in the middle of a heat wave but they are heat loving trees and as long as we keep their roots wet we hope they will survive. In fact it was a bit drizzly when they arrived - bought down the coast by Rod in the Torere Macadamia truck. You can see the grafts covered in blue wax - we have to be a bit careful with those still. We had two different varieties, identified by either red or white tape

Our first and only nut.

Fortunately we got a bit of light rain, but still had to fill the holes with water before planting. The plants were all huddled under the silver birch trees. The first day of planting was very experimental and we didn't get many of them in the ground but since then we can operate like a well oiled machine especially when we had a few friends to help.

1. Fill up the holes with water and allow to soak in.

2. Put the trees in the back of my car (we did try it in a wheelbarrow to start with)

3. Cut the plastic wrapping.

4. Lay the tree with the root ball near the hole

This was what I mainly did.

5.Duncan put the plant in the hole and filled it up with soil and firmed it into the ground

6. Use some of our lovely hay as a mulch

7. Put in a stake and tie above and below the graft - we used a special tie that we use on the grapevines so that it doesn't cut in.

8. Stand Back and admire a lovely row!

9. After that keep a watering program going. We reckon we give them about 4-5 litres each time

Well I couldn't play golf because I had trees to plant so my lovely golfing friend Judy came and helped. We really had a good session that morning.

And what do you offer the planters at Morning Tea time?? Macadamias of course.

The leaves of the A4 variety are quite sharp and as I did the ties I got quite scratched. Hence this is why most pictures of us show us wearing long sleeves.