Fabulous Feijoas! How To Prepare The Ground For Feijoa Tree Planting
From feijoa jam to just eating the fruit raw, there is plenty to love about the feijoa delicacy. As one of the over 500,000 New Zealanders now living in Australia, you are keen to plant a feijoa in your back garden so you can grow the fruit you loved so much while growing up. Before you head down to the nursery to buy a tree though, there are several steps you need to do to prepare the soil. These are the points you need to know.
Planting location
There are two very important factors you need to consider before turning the soil ready for your feijoa trees. These points are:
- You need to plant more than one tree to achieve fruit. Feijoa trees need a mate so they can cross-pollinate and produce fruit. Therefore, when digging the dirt, make sure you make space for two trees or more.
- Feijoa trees do not like excessive heat, and will not produce fruit in temperatures consistently over 40C. Therefore, choose a spot for the trees which has a little shade during the hottest days of summer.
Once you have determined the planting location, then you can get the soil ready for the trees.
Soil preparation
Just like preparing the soil for any new tree, the location needs to be turned over using a spade. Remove all weeds and tree roots in the dislodged soil, and give the soil a chance to get some oxygen. Loosen up the soil a week before you want to plant the trees so you can add water and fertiliser before they arrive.
The good news is you don't need to spend a huge amount of money on fertiliser at this stage. Feijoa trees do not start to bear fruit until at least their third year in the ground. To get the trees started positively, choose a potash or seaweed fertiliser. Feijoa trees do not like fertilisers that are heavy in nitrogen, and if you use one in their soil, then fruit won't form. Manure is another good fertiliser source for your trees, but make sure it is watered down as pure manure burns tree roots. Add one cup of manure to a bucket, and then fill it with water. This ratio will dilute the strength of the manure, so it doesn't harm the roots.
After you have collected the feijoa trees from the nursery, your soil is ready for you to plant the trees. Then, you just have to be patient for a few years until you start to see fruit.
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