We Tried to Fix Every Fruit Tree on Our Farm in 24 Hours

Happy day! Spring is sneaking up upon us and we've got to fix our fruit trees before it's too late. Our fruit trees are on a permaculture pasture, which means they will service our grazing animals as well as give us fruit. Fruit's the bonus. We'll need to mulch them, we need to comp free them, and prune them. Ideally, we'll get this over with in one day. I know it's an impossible goal. What do I say? Aim for the impossible and extraordinary things happen. So that's how y'all are getting out. You're just flying up there. You're just jumping up there and getting out. Before we get to the project, that's not the only chickens that are out. We've had crazy wind. Crazy wind, and it lifted up our silage tarps. And if we've got chickens out, this is a bad combo. Look, they tear up our beds. One down, two to go.

Now wait a minute.

Where's the other tarp?

I don't know.

Okay, we may have lost a tarp, but some good news is our fence has kept out chickens from our garlic, and we've got garlic coming up. Our waterer— oh shoot, that's too— it needs to be way lower. Our trough heater down lower is keeping the nipple from freezing. We've hung this trough heater suspended up just to be right around at the nipple. Thanks to Aaron inside Abundance Plus for that tip. Well, not the funnest job in the world, but it does beat weeding and building beds, and it does feel good to have a garden covered. Really? I haven't even done my chores yet. Let me see if I can't recruit some help. Will you help me?

I'm gonna eat.

We got a big project today. You gonna help?

I'm gonna eat.

Well, eat. Did you eat? Yep. The boys aren't too keen on fixing these trees. I kind of suspect they wouldn't be keen on any kind of project today. Why don't you want to do these trees? Because I have to clean the house and then we have to watch the Super Bowl. Is that not the answer you expected? No, it isn't, I guess. I thought you thought this project was ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I mean— Why? Because the trees don't need to be mulched.

Do they need help?

I'll brush the dead. Sure they do. They're competing with the grass. Uh, I mean, they're like— the grass will never get taller than them no matter what. I don't know if it's because it's the first day of the week coming off of the Sabbath. It's always kind of a cold crank. It takes a minute to get into it, and we're wondering This is when you wonder, are we doing this? A little intimidated by this project. There's 60+ trees out there, and I really don't know how long it will take. I really don't know if this is possible. I still gotta milk Harriet. Other normal— it's a little envious of other normal people. They sleep in a little bit, they go to church, they come home, read some books maybe, uh, then watch the Super Bowl. We rested yesterday. Come on, come on, get, get with this. We'll watch the Super Bowl. In fact, Jonah's having a little micro party with a couple of friends. That will be fun. There's something to look forward to. I would say working with my kids, but they're all grumps this morning. That's just the reality of it. Mom's sick. We think she's got walking pneumonia. So there's some obstacles in our way, but I think we can push through one, one, one step at a time. Can you get me some alfalfa while I get everybody sorted? Josiah's been doing mulch, but feel like he's doing too much. I mean, I guess if it's gonna go, man, I didn't even tell him not to get it on the street. I mean, if it's going easy enough, there ain't gonna go no grass grow through this. All right, we just have another obstacle. Totally forgot Strawberry's leaving today. We're selling Strawberry, so we got to get her pinned up.

I know how to do that. How? We get a net, we make it into a corner of the field.

Okay.

And then we just herd her in.

You think she'll respect the net into the trailer?

Yeah, and in the short term we'll have one other calf with her. We'll have the little calf with her, so then we'll herd the little calf out, we'll herd them both into the trailer, and then herd the other one out.

Does she like alfalfa? I don't think she does. Does she? Really? We could just build a funnel. And, uh, there's 2 horse panels left, I think. Oh, is there? Yeah, that would help. Hey, this is going faster than we thought, huh? Dude, this is the easy part. What's the hard part? Going up to that field. Uh, we should probably milk Harriet real quick. Did you get Harriet separated?

No.

Messiah is going to keep the tree project going, but that's only 1 of 3 tasks. We've got pruning We've got, uh, comfrey. It's not really a verb, comfrey-ing, but let's see if we're going to be able to access this comfrey. Or is the ground frozen?

Milk Harriet.

Can we root this comfrey out? It's frozen right now. Well, that's not dead, it's just— well, I guess the greens are dead. All right, now all we gotta do is get Harriet in.

There you go. Impossible to catch it.

Well, the calf's been getting it all. That's a vigorous calf. It's only been 8 days, so that means we need to separate the calf. But I generally like to wait 2 weeks, so we just won't be getting milk from her for another week. Sort of hangs on the row bar. These are a physical barrier. For us to funnel them into the trailer. We have a joint right there. We funnel— we use that, funnel it open. I'm thankful for Josiah and that track loader right now. The work goes on. It used to be me doing everything. Come on. Set it up. Oh, see what we're doing with this? We're funneling broad with the net, and then it's going to still be a little wide here just to get them in the physical area. And then you can give them a lot of pressure and they'll be forced to go in because the physical barrier— they'll jump right through this fence with too much pressure, but not this. I realize that reach, but this one isn't gonna. Probably only have to undo one. Let's just keep it shut in a corner for now. Hopefully this works. Got a pretty broad netting area here. We're going to kind of let them get used to it. We're going to herd both of them. They're more likely to go together, and it's easier to cut Annie out and get Annie off. Annie's sold too, because we don't want to count on wood chipping these trees all the time. We're gonna do a living mulch. Of course, we can chop and drop comfrey, adds nitrogen. Do we have any really good mulch? Oh yeah, this is just one root. It's just one piece of root. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. There's— that's a tree. Oh boy, I guess we're gonna need to take all we can get the way this comfrey fixes these fruit trees is, one, it will be a living mulch. The plant will grow up around them and it'll shade out grass, and grass won't grow. And then two, you can cut these several times in a season, 4 or 5 times. Cut them, lay that down. That is the mulch. But also, it's what you call nitrogen fixing. It's got a lot of nitrogen in it. You just leave a little piece of root and it's still going to be here. Comfrey roots also go very deep, so if somehow we actually got all the comfrey out, which I highly doubt it, uh, it'll come back. I think if we do a bucket a year, that's probably pretty good, huh? 10 minutes till our guest gets here. Let's see if we can't do a tree. Bring those forks for spreading wood chips. Oh, you wouldn't do it. Sally got a horn, huh? Hey, play it back, Austin. This time add a sound effect. We're just digging a hole, right? We've got to do one tree in less than 10 minutes. We're gonna do this, guys. This comfrey is one piece. Look, two-piece, three pieces. Look, four pieces. You can put a little bit of wood chips on it. All right, let's put a timer on this next one. I mean, you got to count timer in between too. So Austin, start the time right now. Okay, spread out the wood chips. Real time, no edits. Now don't put it in the tree.

You understand?

Don't put it down in the tree. Go! Don't put it in the tree. Don't put it in the tree. This wood chips on the tree will kill it. Don't put it on the tree.

How much time do we have till the people come? 5 minutes.

Okay, let's try to get all these trees down in 5 minutes.

Yeah, we'll have to do one in a bit. All right, y'all get your buckets. It's out in the rain. You have 2 minutes. 2 minutes. Ready? Watch out. Compost. I'm in charge of composting and you're in charge of putting the thing in.

Compost.

There you go. Now. Is it okay to have the stuff sticking out? Yeah. Look how much Gideon put in there. Yes!

Don't do that, that could be broken down a lot.

I found it! Maybe I should take off my gloves, do the job, and then I'll put them back on. I think, yeah. Oh, should it be sticking out or in? All right, put your compost in there. Huh, should it be sticking out?

Compost girl.

Is it sticking out? No, it doesn't have to be sticking out. I think I'm more ready than you are.

That's good. Okay, compost. Good.

It works, doesn't it? Watch out.

I wish you would.

Let's put that—

this is kind of a big clump. Should we—

can we put that—

not do it through it?

Let's not do it through that one. Pop, let's put the root in first. Pop, let's put the root in. That's fine. Go ahead.

You can break that in half, Gideon.

Make 2 out of that. There you go.

Yeah, one of y'all should be in charge of that.

How long— what was the time?

Well, we're not quite done yet. You gotta come get on to the next one before you start the time. Put the tools up. I think we're gonna do it in less than 5 minutes.

Papa, load up! Get it!

Okay, 3 and a half minutes so far. All right, stop my time. So I think without running, we should probably do a tree every 5 minutes. So in an hour, 12 trees an hour. Oh boy, that's really not that good. It's gonna take 5 hours. Let me explain what's happening here. Spreading the wood chips first. Once it warms up, Henry can come out, Jonah can come out. That's what we need, or else it's gonna take 6 hours at a breakneck pace. Second thing we do is dig down through the wood chips.

No time for explanation. Explanation, you can just do a voiceover. I don't have time to talk.

I'm digging down through the wood chips, getting down to the ground. Once I get to the ground, I do one chop into it, lift it up, and have them put the compost in.

Ready?

Yeah, you guys could do a little bomb. You could put the com— the comfrey right in the middle of that. There you go. So then she Put the compost in, put the, the comfrey in, and leave it just a little bit covered. It's our 4th tree. 5, 6, 7, 8. We're down in our frost pocket here, which— this is getting to be fun. Kids are in good mood. This is our frost pocket, so no fruit trees down here. Just— these are maples, locusts, more frost-tolerant trees. We're foresting our pastures and pasturing our forest. Here are our cow people. Happy day! Good morning. Good morning. You got a trailer? Yes. Afraid you might try to pull this off with a minivan. I mean, I'm sure people have. Nice to meet you. I'm Rachel. I mean, nice to meet you. Good, back up. Let's use the Sally as a barrier. Come as close as you can over here, straight through here, and Sally will kind of be a deterrent as well. You out here to help us? Just in time. Y'all going to have to stand back though. Let them go, let them go, let it— let them be— let it be their idea. We're going to have to push them. Definitely not going to do that. Wait, wait, everybody stop. Let them calm down. That— okay, it's okay, it's okay. Everybody stop. All right, a little more pressure. Everybody stop. Then turn around. All right, a little more pressure. You want to put in the big one or the little one? Both, and then we'll get the little one out. But if the big one goes in and you can shut the door, we'll do that. Okay, but it's, it's, it's easy to cut one out for sure. A lot easier to cut one out than just to take one away. Yeah, I'm worried about them kicking us. You're right in the crossfire.

Kind of hope it kicks.

And we cannot let— we cannot let them get past us now, okay? Because it's going to be— which one are we selling? The second time herding them in is way harder than the first.

I think— are we selling a little one?

The big one. The big one is Strawberry. The little one's Annie. Come on, come on, come on, everybody up. They are, they're good friends, cousins, good cousins. I think they're related more than cousins. Let it be her. Let it be her idea, because we sure can't stop them if they decide to go through us. There it is. And now we got to cut out Annie, who's all the way up in the front. There you go. Now get between them. There she comes. Here we go. There you go. Okay, that went really smooth. That could have went really bad. It made us look really good. I think we had a— I think we had an 80% chance, maybe 75%. Look what we got. Jonah and Henry are helping us. I'm excited. A little bit of divide and conquer action coming up. We are back at it. What do we do, 6 over there? We got the bottom trees done. We have at least 60, so we're only 10% there. It's 11:30, it's almost lunch. We lost Lily to making lunch. Just me and you. If he spreads it all out so much, it's not even gonna block grass, and then the grass isn't gonna grow that great. So we got to make it thicker, and he's not got to put it on the trees. He's way ahead of us. Oh boy. Donna, make sure it's not wide but thick. Okay, I know. Okay, good. The first one we saw was not that way. When you get wood chips in this, you got to clear it out. It will kill the tree. All right. You understand? That's why this is here. Yeah, you guys might have to do that. Wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no, no. The ones that are. Any of that wood chips that get in there? Clear it out.

We're out. A lot of.

A lot of trees to go. Did you plant comfort in that?

No, I did.

Here's the way. You test the Tree in the winter when you can't see the bark. Oh, no, it's alive.

It's alive.

I mean, trees all look dead in the winter. Let's prune any broken branches, Any nubs? If we're good. Anything growing inwards? This side, this is the north-facing slope. It's, it's, it's hard. There it is, there it is.

Papa, papa, papa.

What's this you got set up?

It's an easier thing instead of digging it out.

Okay. Just got to get the Sally in the right position every time. Way down there is our creek. You got to get 50 vertical feet up above the creek to get out of the frost pocket. Frost comes down, settles down here in the valley. Let's get it off the trees. We're planting the trees on the— on side of the mountain. Yeah, come on, come on, you young strapping guys. Lily's making lunch. Let's get it done. We have two Maddox. Lift that up, put some compost in there, put a 1-inch comfrey in there. Okay, it's probably a good time. Hey, y'all gotta go eat lunch. I'll fast. I'll go right through lunch. Just get along down there. Let's get done, what, by 3, and you can still go do your Super Bowl snacks? You're looking at me like I'm crazy. I'm hoping Gideon, we can do 10 trees while they're gone. I only did 3 because I had to go back. The beautiful one needed some things. She had temperatures yesterday. I don't think she has a temperature today. I think she's on the mend, but still really down. Are you guys breaking up the comfrey? Okay, so you can break it up down to an inch. That'll— that's— that's many plants, and you've got to spread it out. There you go. There's this plant. Yeah, you gotta at least leave that on there to give it a better chance.

Yep.

I think these are all broke down. And you guys are seriously trying to leave me in 40 minutes? So Jonah's leaving me, you're not. Well, we're gonna be done in 40 minutes. We don't plant our orchard on just a cute little boxed-off, postage stamp orchard, because on a permaculture farm, everything works for something else. So the fruit trees serve as shade serve as a rub, serve as fly traps— yes, because birds and spiders like to live in them— for the cows, and even food dropping their fruit. And then of course the cows care for the fruit trees by manuring.

Be careful!

I thought there was more comfrey here.

Yeah, you crazy.

I don't think there was. We need 40 more pieces. Oh, here it is. Yep, there's some. That'll be enough. Keep digging all that whole plant out because there's more here. I just don't know where they are, and we'll just leave those. I got— we gotta take a break. Stomach's still a little upset. I think I just need to rest. Jonah's right there, gonna go get snacks. Here comes Austin. We have got to prove this vlog and finish before Jonah gets back. You think we can do it? Sure. We probably have an hour and a half, and I still need to prune and test the trees to see who's dead and plan on replacing those dead ones. All right, Jonah's wrapping it up at the grocery store. We better hurry up, guys. I saw he disappeared, so I was competing for some of the— Yeah, Austin's stepping it up. Adopted college dropout Austin has the energy we needed. The new energy to finish strong. Oh my word, we did it with some time to spare. It's only 3:30, Super Bowl party coming up. If you want to learn more from me on permaculture and designing your best homestead ever, I have a free PDF. Print it out, make it a book. I'm putting the link down in the description. Join my newsletter and you got it. It's party time. Jonah and his friends are here. He got them a mixed, mixed fruit salad, BBS sodas. How did they get such a good big sister? Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, bean dip, chips, potato chips, veggie dips. The kids are gonna have a good time. I'm gonna go to bed. Happy day.