The first two apple trees are in the ground!

A few weeks ago, I purchased our first candidates for the fruit orchard -- 6 apple trees.  I held out on planting them because they require daily watering for at least the first week.  With our being out of town last weekend, I didn't want to chance damaging them.

I was finally able to pick them up from Behnke Nurseries in Beltsville, MD the other day.

With a finite amount of time after work yesterday, I only wanted to get 2 in the ground.  Thankfully, a riding mower was included in the price of the house.  It comes with a small trailer so hauling those two trees and soil amendments to the field (future orchard) was easy.

Since I'd pre-dug some of the holes, widening them was rather easy.  Planting instructions vary.  While all recommend digging to the depth of the root ball, some vary the diameter either stating that 2x or 3x the size of the ball is the way to go.  I went with 3x+ just to allow for plenty of expansion of the roots right away.

The help people at Behnke's recommend amending the soil before/during planting.  Since we have a lot of clay in Maryland, I went with a three-part mix of native soil, leaf compost (LeafGro), and pine bark mulch.  The mulch is much less dense than the other two parts and allows for air and water to get down to the roots as well as to help the roots to expand to a larger diameter as the tree grows. 

After a few hours of work, I have the first two trees in the ground.  To help deter deer from feeding on them, I'll be draping plastic mesh from the trees.  I will also do some research into buying a trunk-wrap material.  I don't have that stuff right now.  Soon, though.