Hi folks! In this post, we’re going to talk about how we use our compost to plant our Malay Apple tree (here in Antigua, we call it a Pomerac).
Here she is, our Malay apple sapling, about four feet tall and about ten months old. It’s been languishing in this pot longer than it should have, so it’s time to remedy that.
Here’s the location we’re looking at. It’s about ten feet or so from the Scaevola and about eight feet from the bed to the right and the bed to the left, which you can’t see in this shot. It’s on a bit of a slope, so we’ll be building a little rock retaining wall / border to contain the soil.
When we start digging in, you can see that the soil isn’t horrible. Other areas of our hillside are mostly marl, so they require a bit more amending, but this area is basically fill dirt. Once we get the hole the right size, we’ll add a layer of compost on the bottom, mixing it in with the soil, then wet it in, so the tree has some moisture underneath to start it off.
Here’s the hole with the rock wall built around the downhill side. You can see that we made the hole about 3 times the width of the root ball, and at least as deep. Since we’re raising it up a bit from the slope surface, we didn’t go quite as deep as we would if the soil was level.
We mixed the native soil below with about 30% compost to give our tree a good base of organic material to grow into. We also watered it in a bit.
Pulling the plant out of the pot, you can see that it was ready for an upgrade. That small flourish of roots at the bottom is what was poking out of the bottom of the pot.
We break up the bottom roots and soil of the root ball just a bit before putting it in place in its new home.
Here it is, fully buried. The soil is a mix of the native soil that was in the hole, plus some used potting soil, as well as about 10% compost. This should get the tree started well.
The last thing we do before watering it in is, put a nice thick layer – about 3″ – of our compost overs on top, as mulch. This will feed the tree, provide more microbiology to the soil, and it will help keep the soil cool and maintain moisture levels.
Of course, we make sure to plant the tree at the same depth that it was in the pot, and we make sure the compost overs are pulled back from the trunk of the tree. We don’t want them causing any rotting issues.
We then give it a good soak and that’s it! Our Pomerac has a new home.
Update: It’s Saturday, March 21…
Only 12 days later and our Malay Apple is covered with new growth. So far, so good.