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A school can put a few apple or orange trees just about
anywhere, but we also encourage a larger planting of at least 50 trees.
This may seem huge to you, but look at the logic.
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Trees are like
kids: once you have over 10, more of them don’t seem to make much
difference. |
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Ripening times of
different varieties are spread out over months, so you need a lot of
fruit just for each of the kids in the school to get one apple or
orange. |
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Upkeep is extremely
minimal, so you need more of them to keep kids busy. |
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Planting them is
far easier than you think. For 1000 square feet of vegetable
garden, you have to till 1000 square feet of soil. For a 1000
square foot orchard, you only have to till at total of 10 square
feet where the trees are actually planted. You can leave the rest
of the ground hard as a rock, and you’ll never have to till the
ground again for the life of the orchard. |
Maintaining an
efficient, attractive, and productive orchard is easier if you do it
right to start with. A bit of planning and effort at the start of the
orchard saves you a heap of work in future years. An efficient orchard
is based upon the following two principals: |
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Timed drip
irrigation:
Relying on hand-watering trees in an arid climate is courting
disaster, as you just can’t stand there with a hose long enough.
Trees are not properly or evenly watered, leading to cracked or
deformed fruits and die-offs of young trees. Timed irrigation
allows you to go away on long weekends or vacation without worry and
gives the best results. Drip irrigation delivers water right to the
tree’s roots in a small area, which cuts down on fungal diseases and
weeds. With timed drip irrigation the trees are able to make it
through the hottest summers in stride. Best of all,
this system is
cheap and easy to install and maintain- even the kids can do it. |
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Thick bed of mulch:
Mulching heavily cuts down on weeds, conserves water, decomposes to
enrich the soil, and provides an attractive background for the
orchard. It may be the only fertilizing your trees ever need.
Mulching can be a labor-intensive process. An arborist will
probably dump shredder chips for free, but they still have to be
spread around by folks with wheelbarrows, hay forks, and rakes. It
lasts a couple of years before having to be replenished. If you
can’t mulch the whole area, at least do the base of the trees.
Miniature bark chips also works well for mulching the base of the
trees and are readily available by the bag at home centers. |
Click to continue on to How
to Plan and Plant an Instructional School Orchard |
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Click to
return to the Apples page
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