Chestnut Rows and Green Globes

The first photo shows a partial cross section of rows of young chestnut trees during their first summer in the orchard. Spacing is 20 feet apart. Chris placed two bamboo stakes astride each tree to stabilize wire caging for deer protection. She surrounded the trunk base of each tree with a piece of perforated drain piping for rodent protection. When the perf pipe ran out, we cut liter size plastic soda bottles to use instead. While the trees are young, there's plenty of sun in between for artichokes. We planted Green Globes in between trees on half of three of the rows. Both trees and artichokes are heavily mulched with mowed grass for weed management and moisture retention.