Digging Under the Back Porch, Part 5

More digging under the deck today. The weather was incredibly warm, and it was a great day to be outside (and somewhat sheltered from the heat). In addition to digging, we started to take down the old wall on the North side of the basement steps.

Filling the Bagster.

Liz, hauling away some cinder blocks.

In back, Liz dug some holes in preparation for the apple trees we’re picking up this afternoon.

Taking a break. We both were impressed that the garden boxes have fared pretty well, after all this time.

A bit more progress. Still have a lot of soil left to remove.

We broke around 1:30 PM and took a very long drive to Royal Oak Farm Orchard. Liz had ordered two apple trees, which she’s planning on pruning into espaliers.

Driving into the orchard.

I was expecting much larger tree trees. But what we got were almost the size of sticks.

We didn’t really get to tour the grounds, as the orchard isn’t officially open yet (they were just handling pick-up orders). But really looked amazing. I took a short video on our way out:

Letting these guys sit in water overnight, before putting them in the ground tomorrow. Liz knows way more about this than I’m able to remember – the fact that these were grafted onto a specific kind of root stock. And she’s going to be doing some serious (and daunting) pruning, to get these guys to grow the way she wants.

We put in posts last year, specifically for this purpose. And we’ve had to wait until now to get the trees. We’re most likely not going to be getting any apples this year, but it will be interesting to see how these two trees take shape, in the coming months.

Related:
Digging Under the Back Porch, Part 4
Garden Arbor Construction, Part 6, and Espalier Posts