Removing grass from around the fruit trees

A little over a month ago I mowed the grass in the fruit tree area after the cows had eaten it down somewhat.

The cows had also pressed against the fencing around the small fruit trees to try to get to the fruit trees' leaves.  The fencing on many trees needs repairs or improvement so I took some of the fencing apart for now after I mowed the grass.  Otherwise in the past I would wait until another day as I have until next year before the cattle are back in the fruit tree area.  And a year goes by and I don't get to working on the fencing.  By partially taking down the fencing that needs improvement maybe I will get to fixing it by next year.

In the meantime I also saw the grass had grown right up around the tree trunks.  Years ago when the trees were first planted I had placed small rocks around the trees to keep the grass away.  Many years later the grass grew in and among the rocks.  I decided to spend some time removing the grass around trees where the rocks were still more common than the grass.  For the other trees it looked like there was more grass than rocks.  So I completely removed those rocks.

I didn't think this would take very long.  Over a month later I only have one tree left to do.   It wasn't like I did this non-stop.  I would take a half hour, or an hour or two and work on a tree or two.  But I found that some very grassy areas still had a large number of rocks.  These areas I had to remove the rocks from the grass roots.  This took time.  I think I worked on ten to twelve trees.

I didn't get 100% done as I had to move an irrigation sprinkler line through this area last week.  I'll finish it up after things dry out.   Cross your fingers.

Here are some pictures of a few of the trees I worked on.

One cherry tree.   I should give up on my two cherry trees.  Both started to die off and then came back from the roots.  The trees should be much bigger as I have planted these trees over 10 years ago.  I did have some cherries on these trees some years ago but it was a battle to get the cherries as the birds would eat them and leave the pits on the stems.

Maybe I should have removed the rocks also.  As you can see in a month's time the grass already has started to come back.

Another cherry tree.  For this tree I also removed the rocks.

A smaller pear tree.  Last year the cattle got through part of the fencing to eat the tree's leaves.  That is why this pear tree looks younger than what it is.

My other pear tree.  Last year, or was it the year before, I had rebuilt and improved the fencing around this pear tree.

You can see how the cattle tried to break through the fencing this year.

This tree required a lot of work to remove the rocks from.  You don't see all the rocks as they have depth to them.  I removed a number of 5 gallon pails of rocks from this tree.

Pears are growing again this year.

I have the serviceberry tree/bush left to remove the rocks from.  You can't see the rocks but they are there.  I started on the right side to remove the rocks until I had to stop because the irrigation sprinkler line was coming the next day.