Extending the orchard

We marked out the orchard today to see how many more trees we need to get.

The existing apple trees are on M26 rootstocks, these are semi-dwarfing trees meaning that they will reach a height of 2.5 metres after 10 years. This makes them a manageable tree that can be worked mostly from the ground or maybe a small step ladder. Their spacing is around 4 metres so we worked out that we can easily get another 17 trees in here.

Myself and Chris had an idea of planting large apple trees along the drive to eventually have a big towering avenue of apple trees along the drive. We are going to plant M25 rootstocks, these are the biggest apple trees you can get. They reach a height of close to 5 metres after 10 years and can produce anything from 100 - 150 kg of apples per tree.