Our citrus garden is finally planted

Good golly the weather has been beautiful this week. It doesn't feel like winter at all.

Baby J has been swimming in the paddling pool on the deck two days in a row (my attempt to get vitamin D into him) and I have been getting lots of gardening jobs ticked off my list.

Today's job - I bought and planted four dwarf citrus trees in the raised bed Ben and I built next to my deck.

The sun had gone by the time I took these photos, but this spot does get a good amount of sunlight over the course of the day, so I think these trees will do well here.

From left to right I planted a Mandarin Corsica No 2, a Lime Tahitian, an Orange Washington Navel and a Lemon Meyer. They are all dwarf varieties, so shouldn't grow more than 1.5 - 2 metres high. 

As I've mentioned before, I've been filling this garden bed over the past few months with free materials I've gathered from here, there and everywhere.

Today I dug holes in the middle of all that material for the trees and filled the holes with store-bought compost that has blood and bone mixed into it. I also added garden lime to counteract any acidic pine needles in my garden mulch, and a few handfuls of store-bought sheep pellets for nitrogen.

Over top of the whole raised bed, I've layered a few centimetres of free wood mulch to conserve water, suppress weeds, add nutrients and give a tidy appearance to the garden. I love me some good wood mulch. I try to keep the wood mulch a little bit away from the actual trunks of my fruit trees, as I don't want them to get overheated.

I'm feeling so happy that this garden is finally planted. I've been working towards it for so long. Imagine how good the first harvest will taste!

Update - I took some photos of the trees at midday, when they get full sunlight. Much better!