My Orchard

California

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847ranchpanorama.jpg
I love this place. It's 11 acres, with orchard on about 9 of the acres. This is what it looks like in winter, looking west from the other side of the canyon toward me.


And this is what I see looking southeast from my farmhouse. (white, with the windmill and watertower, in the picture above).

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The first, panorama photo was made from offstage left in the second photo.

The second photo also shows a bit of where the back of the orchard (far right) rolls off into an impassible ravine.

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Mark777

Member
Beautiful place California.

The third photo does add merit to your description of working on a continious grade...still, to me, worth the battle.

The last photo looks like my back acre...only better manicured :).
 

Jim_S

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Nice place. I forget, what are you growing in the orchard?

Jim
 

California

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Apples! These go mostly for Martinelli Sparkling Cider, the stuff served alongside champagne to kids and non-drinkers.

Some of the trees are original Gravensteins from about 1905. There are also Golden Delicious and other varieties.

Bearing trees are farmed commercially by a neighbor along with his larger acreage. I plant replacements and take care of the new trees for a couple of years.

Mark, Doc, Jim, thanks for the compliments!
 

JDA 3020

Member
Nice looking orchard, better kept up than the one we had on our farm. We also would get critters like that buck in ours, they seem to like apples.
 

California

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Bimp! Continuing on ...

Here's what I was working on this weekend. Brute force gardening, ie pulling weeds with the backhoe.

Discing gets most everything, but there are unwanted blackberry bushes and scrub oak so close to the apple trees that the disc misses them. Even herbicide in the past didn't knock them down, due to their massive root structure. So I'm trying something new. Yes, that's my glove on the taproot in the last picture.

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EastTexFrank

Senior Member
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Bimp! Continuing on ...

Here's what I was working on this weekend. Brute force gardening, ie pulling weeds with the backhoe.

Cali, your "brute force gardening" is somewhat similar to my "redneck pruning", i.e., using a 12-gauge and rifled slugs to get dead limbs out of trees that are too high to reach with a polesaw and ladder. A man's go to do what a man's got to do.

Nice place. When you live someplace like that, it makes it a joy to go to work every day.
 
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