Hello, I live in a peat-bog area in Vancouver - beside Trout Lake. The soil is heavy and clayish. I'm planning on constructing an apple espalier along one fence (about 30cm away from the fence, 15' long). Since I'm in the process of landscaping my yard from scratch I can pretty much do anything I want in terms of getting the soil prepared. Are there any suggestions for how I should prepare the soil/bed for the apples? Assuming that I will need to add some new soil/bedding, what type of soil should I get? I was thinking about digging a trench about 30cm deep, filling it with soil and then building up a 30-45cm raised bed. thanks Doug
Sounds like a viable way of preparing a bed area. Make certain you plant the tree at the appropriate depth, that is to make sure you have the graft union above soil, check down the stem in the soil to make sure the nursery planted it at the appropriate depth, they don't always pay too much attention to this. pH of the soil should probably be checked prior to major renovations, it may or may not need some adjustment. Drainage is a constant issue for gardens in the GVRD and Fraser Valley, make certain the water has somewhere to go, put in a drain pipe or two before you bring in soil.
Orientation should be evaluated prior to planting also. I find trees that are espaliered with along the east to west rather than a north to south do better in the long run.
thanks for the info. Do you have any tips on checking pH? I could probably just put some soil in a jar with some water (checking the pH of the water first), and use test strips (ie pH paper) to measure the pH. What pH should I be looking to achieve? As for drainage, where do people usually put the output of their drainpipe? Hooking up some big-o to my house drain tiles would be a major pain, and my alley doesn't have storm sewers. I do have a 12'x3'x3' gravel drain pit that I built for collecting water from my garage via the gutters. Perhaps I could use that too. cheers Doug
checking the pH can be done the way you suggest, depends on the testing paper. There are little soil test kits available at the local garden shop for a few bucks, they generally work on the same principle, add some water to some dirt, make a slurry, add a little reactive pill and measure the color of the slurry against a chart. pH of about 6.5 is pretty good for max nutrient availability. have a look at a pH - nutr ient chart to get an idea of how pH affects plants. http://www3.telus.net/public/bali1/consultation.htm Draining with gravity is always the first priority, hard to defeat Ma nature. as for an outlet, anywhere water can be removed to or collect that is convenient for you , the plants and your basement. If you can run to a perimeter drain or storm drain thats great, your holding area may be sufficient but problematic in excessive rainfalls (like last week!) I have been doing a large landscape installation in Morgan Creek this last two weeks and their drainage from the backyard (where we are working) is a 6 inch outlet about 8 feet from the sidewalk at the end of a long landscaped bed, let me tell you it was a RIVER a week ago Thursday when we had the monsoon rains, poorly planned and installed by whomever did the work. Not to mention the fact that they had scraped 8 iches of soil off the backyard, down to clay hardpan then filled it with sand. No drainpipes or anything, so needless to say it turned into 6 inches of quicksand and it still is soupy more than a week and a half later.
