> From: Jim Nichols <jhnichols@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jhnichols@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
>
> What's with the cardboard around the young trees?
Fruit trees and grass are competitors; both are surface feeders.
So when we plant fruit trees, we “sheet mulch” an area around them, to give
them a head-start on the competition. We have a contact in the University of
Victoria asset disposal office. He calls us whenever they install a bunch of
equipment that comes in large boxes, and we go get a pickup-full of flattened
boxes for use around the farm. We also pave the propagation room in the
greenhouse with cardboard, to keep weeds down without using chemicals.
Later, we’ll plant daffodils or other bulbs under the apple trees, which are
not greedy surface-feeders, like grass is.
We planted 63 apple trees last year. I try to plant a hundred trees a year.
Jan
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