Planting Day - October 2019

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Its October 2019 which is far too late to be planting cherry trees in central Otago but nothing ever goes to plan in horticulture.

5700 of a combination of Lapins, Sentennial and Sweetheart varieties were planted over 3 days.

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These trees should have been in the ground a month ago, however there were numerous obstacles getting in the way, we only settled on the land in July, there was a rugby world cup on (we were in Japan) and the planter was not available due to all the horticulture developments in the region.

Euan and Jon had many obstacles to overcome, including having the trees delivered weeks in advance and having to hem them in, then having to sort out water for the hemmed in trees before digging them all up again and planting them as originally planned.

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Once the trees were out of the ground, the planting itself was a fairly seamless process. Every 2.75 metres the GPS on the tractor would beep and one of the crew would shove a tree in the ground. After 85 trees we would drive back to the beginning, move 2.25 metres further east and do it all again.

It was an immense 3 days, but the result was more than we could have asked for. The beginning of Forest Lodge Orchard.

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