We have 3 ½ peach trees (I’ll explain the ½ tree in a different post). One of them was a very prodigious producers of peaches up until 2 years ago. Then, for some strange reason, it began to bloom in January. When the cold weather hit in February, the blossoms were more or less killed. We had no peaches last year and, admittedly, I let the area go. It turned into a very unruly weed patch.
Once again, this year the tree bloomed in January. I debated cutting it down, but because it does at least filter carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. I decided to let it live. So I set about preparing it for plastic sheeting and mulch.
First, I weed whacked the area and hit it with Roundup. I had to be very careful not to cut up the drip irrigation lines my wife had put in. She tends to get pissed off at me when I do that.
So, here is what the area looked like the other day.
I weed whacked again and discovered that, sometime in the past, I had put weed barrier fabric down. Like I said, the only barrier that barrier fabric provides is a barrier to you preventing weeds.
I yanked up the fabric barrier and tossed it aside – deal with it later. This is what it looked like.
A lot of it, eh?
I then had to do a little cutting to be sure the sheeting I put down lay flat. There were two stumps from some bushes I had trimmed that I had to take down to ground level.
They don’t look like much in from this view, but they were about three inches high and too tough to cut with loppers. So, I had to get the chain saw out to cut them back.
That was tricky because there some rocks buried (imagine my surprise) and I had to avoid drip irrigation line. Anyway, I got that done with minimal damage to my chain although a few sparks from hitting rocks did fly.
After smoothing out the area around the tree, I was ready to lay the sheeting. Note that I left an opening around the tree trunk itself. You want to let some water come through that area, even though, by this time, the tree has roots deep enough that it will find its own water.
Finally, I lugged the mulch bags down to the tree area and dropped them – to be finished later.
Just before I left the area for the day, I noticed something amazing – a peach on the tree!
One peach on the whole tree, one I’m sure some squirrel will get before we do.
Finally, I finished. Here is the end result.
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