If you’ve stayed with me, congratulations! I think it’s time to talk about timing. All farmers are pretty well attuned to the seasons, and tree farming is no different. Spring planting is over, we’re pruning and staking and working the problems out of the irrigations system as needed. We always hope for spring rains, but the watering system must work in case the rains don’t come. By mid to late April the actual work on the tree farm pauses for a bit as we begin scrambling to get the trees all my new friends have purchased dug and moved to their new locations. My goal is to have all sold trees planted no later than May 15. We want to have the trees dug before they break dormancy, but once the roots are cut, we can store them with the root balls wrapped in burlap liners inside of wire baskets. These have flat bottoms so we can stand them up, pile sawdust or straw around the root balls and with adequate water they can keep that way quite happily for a year or more. However, I don’t want to haul them down the road once the high temps start getting into the 90s regularly. It’s just too stressful for them. So that’s where the May 15 deadline comes into play. It’s kind of just a date on the calendar, but the later we get after that the more the risk goes up. This is going to be a short post, as I have trees to plant! Cheers, Logan