STEP ONE
Planting a sapling the right way
Most trees that struggle were let down on the day they went into the ground. An hour of care at planting saves years of nursing afterwards.
-
Give each tree room from the start
Leave 22 to 25 feet between trees. It looks like a waste of land in year one. By year six the branches will be touching, and trees planted close grow tall and thin instead of wide and heavy with fruit.
-
Open the pit and sweeten the soil
Dig a generous pit and mix lime or dolomite into both the pit and the soil you took out. Kerala rain leaves soil sour, and sour soil locks up the food you add later.
-
Fill it with a proper mix
About 15 kg of well-dried cow dung, a kilo of rock phosphate and a kilo of neem cake, turned together with your topsoil. This is the tree’s pantry for its first year.
-
Raise a mound, do not sink a hole
Heap the filled pit into a low dome above ground level and plant into the top of that mound. Water then runs away from the stem instead of collecting around it.
-
Keep the graft joint above the soil
Slit the polybag away without breaking the ball of soil, settle the plant in, and firm the earth around it. The bud union — that swelling low on the stem — must stay clear of the soil. Bury it and the graft can rot.
Not sure how this applies to your land?
Ask our nursery team