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We started with a few trees in 2003 and planned to grow about 40 fruit trees of various varieties including apples, plums, peaches, apricots,
cherries, blueberries, almonds, figs, mulberry and pears. Water was our limiting factor until we found ample quantities of drinkable bore
water in 2006 and expanded the size of our orchard to contain about 300 trees.
Our first apples came in 2007/08 when our Pink Lady produced a box of apples and the kangaroos ate all of the Granny Smiths.
We netted 12 trees in the 2008/09 season and tasted many heritage apples we have not tried before - unfortunately bird damage to netted trees was severe..
In July 2008 we grafted 80 varieties obtained from Grove, Petty's and other collectors and these were planted out in the main orchard in July 2009.
In July 2009 we grafted a further 85 varieties and planted them in the main orchard in September, 2010.
In July 2010 we grafted 10 more cider varieties and 25 general varieties for planting in 2011 - our orchard will then be nearly full. We have however added 12 varieties
of pears to our collection as well ans a number of plums, cherries, peaches and apricots.
By mid December 2009 the &#@! birds have taken all of our apple crop but tree damage by birds was minimal. We also installed a 6foot (1800mm) kangaroo fence
to minimise damage to young trees - kangaroos love to eat young apple tree shoots.
Ill health has caused us to defer our 2010 project of arial netting over the whole orchard - and in the meantime the irrigation system has been improved to enable
application of liquid fertilisers through the watering system..
We plan to finish up with about 200 apple varieties including most of those that originated in Australia, 40 varieties of cider apples and an
assortment of the old favorite European varieties like the English Cox's Orange Pippin and Bramleys Seedling.
We have a list of the varieties that we have chosen and grafted or planted.
During the few weeks up to Christmas 2009 we have picked good numbers of the following berries from our orchard.
Mulberry, Black currant, Red Currant, Rasberry, Logan berry, Young berry and Strawberry.
The smell and flavour of our home grown berries are so natural, sweet and wonderful. Bought berries just don't taste the same.