Bur oaks planted

It froze last night. That's a little early. I think the 50% 1st frost date here is Sept. 23d. It's been about a week since I stopped setting the windows open at night for cooling, and today was the first day I set the greenhouse doors to warm the house during the day.

Also today I planted the five potted Bur oaks which I've been dutifully watering all summer. They are not mulched or fenced yet. I'm basically following the instructions in Dave Jacke's Edible Forest Gardens, Volume 2. (Hole 2x the diameter of the pot, domed bottom hole, no amendments in the hole other than mycorhizal inoculant.)  I'm going to omit the cardboard layer as there are not that many weeds growing out here to suppress.

I hope I didn't kill them to death. For container plants he says to spread out the roots and roughen up the outside of the root ball before planting, but when I did that huge chunks of the dirtball tended to fall off, which he says is a bad thing.

Domed-bottom hole.

Made my own inoculant out of a couple of shovelfuls of forest soil mixed with wood-chip based mulch.

Double handful of inoculant in hole.

Rootball out of pot.

Plant partially backfilled & puddled in.

Backfilled and with tamped-earth watering ring just outside edge of hole.