Planting Moringa Trees
In this instructional video learn tips for planting Moringa trees. While this video is specifically made for planting Moringa trees that you have ordered in the mail from A Healthy Leaf, it can certainly apply to planting any Moringa tree. Video covers site preperation, using beneficial Mycorrhizae fungi and more. Watch to learn how to get your Moringa seedling from the shipping tube into the ground!
Transcript:
Today, I’m going to show you how to plant the Moringa seedling that you hopefully just got in the mail. If you haven’t ordered your Moringa seedlings yet, visit the online store and as soon as I get your order, I’ll ship them out to you. Moringa is an incredible tree, it’s a multipurpose tree, and it’s a fast growing, drought resistant tree with extremely healthy seed pods and leaves on it. And, really, the best way to experience a Moringa tree is to plant one yourself.
A couple of things to keep in mind when planting Moringa trees, Moringa is extremely hardy and it can grow in poor soil conditions and it can tolerate some extreme temperatures, but there are two things that will kill a Moringa. Root rot is the first one and if you’re in a heavy clay type of soil where the water sits in that soil and doesn’t drain well, it’s going to rot the roots out on your Moringa tree. Consider adding sand into that soil when you prepare the site to increase the drainage, so, root rot is something Moringa will not tolerate.
The second thing Moringa really won’t tolerate, it won’t tolerate the cold temperatures. If you get frosts, expect that the Moringa tree may die back to the roots and a heavy freeze can even kill the roots as well if the tree is unprotected.
So, with that in mind, you’re going to want to choose a site when planting Moringa oleifera trees. I’ve already dug a hole here for demonstration purposes. You’re going to want to choose a site that gives it some room to grow, Moringa can grow very fast and you’ll be surprised in one season how much it can grow. I planted some seeds earlier this year and I have trees over 14 feet tall, producing lots of seed pods, and that’s in a one growing season. Make sure you give it some space.
When you get ready and you’ve selected a site and you’ve got your seedling, go ahead and get some other things, get a shovel, I’ve got some chicken compost here, you’re going to want to use some sort of compost or compost of manure. If you have ordered it as well, this is the Mycorrhizae Beneficial Fungi that you’re going to want to add to your planting site when you do the transplant of your seedling. So, get your seedling you’ve ordered, your Mycorrhizae Fungi, shovel, and of course, some water.
When you received your shipping tube in the mail, you’ll noticed one end has tape on it, and that’s the bottom of the tube. Go ahead and just remove that tape, might be on there kind of good, but remove that tape … and as you do, you’ll noticed that underneath … you’ll see a nail, so remove that nail from the tube. Then finally, just pull that bottom cap off and when you do, you’ll have your Moringa seedling. Your seedling is wrapped in tin foil, so peel that tin foil off.
If you’ve noticed that your leaves are a little bit yellow, it has been in the dark for a couple of days being shipped, and that’s normal, it will green again once you water it and put it in the ground. At this point, I will go ahead and water your tree, get some water in until you see it drip out the bottom. Get that soil good and moist, and don’t squeeze this container to break up the soil. We want to remove the seedling and this soil mass in one piece, so don’t squeeze that at all, that root ball’s all in there, holding it together if you don’t disrupt it.
All right, we’re going to put the tree to the side for now and you’ve selected a site, you’ve unwrapped your seedling … Dig a hold, preferably a foot to a foot and a half in diameter, and a foot to a foot and a half deep if you can. I’ve already prepared this site, I’ve removed the top soil and set it aside and I dug the rest of the hole out. Then, we’re going to go ahead and mix into that hole our compost, or in this case, our composted chicken manure. You can add quite a bit, you can add 10 up to 40% of compost. I’m going to add some in and then I’m going to put some of the dirt back on. We’re going to keep adding compost, adding dirt, mixing it and putting water into that planting site.
You’ve prepared the site, you’ve dug it out, you have mixed the compost and the top soil in, you have used up to 40% compost, mixed it in, watering it. You’ve created this loose soil that Moringa root is just going to be able to sink down into and really grow quickly from.
Now, there’s one trick to getting this Moringa seedling and this root ball out of this container without it crumbling into pieces. I’m going to show you how to do that. Take it, turn your container upside down, and hit it against something hard. That will come out in a single piece. I’m going to put it back in, but that’s how you do it, again, don’t crumble and squeeze this container.
Once your seedling is loose, take a shovel, put it into the center of your planting site and just work it back and forth to open up a hole for your seedling to go into. You can take the Mycorrhizae Beneficial Fungi if you have ordered some with your seedlings, this package has enough Mycorrhizae Fungi in it to treat 4 planting sites. Go ahead and open that package. Sprinkle the site with the Mycorrhizae and this is really going to help the roots, increase their nutrient and water uptake. Once you put the Mycorrhizae in, take out your seedling … We’ll put that right into the planting site and then we’re going to carefully close up the ground around it, making sure we’re not leaving any air voids inside. I’m going to take this top soil it had earlier, some that is leftover, and just going to pack that around the tree because I don’t want the tree to be at a low spot that will attract the water. I’m just going to build a little mount around the tree. There you have it.
That Moringa tree is going to do very well in this type of planting site. Thanks for watching, again, if you haven’t ordered any seedlings, go to www.ahealthyleaf.com, check the online store and order your seedlings there. I’ll get them mailed out to you as soon as you placed the order, and you can plant, what many people called “The Miracle Tree,” for yourself and enjoy the benefits of both the leaves and the seed pods. Thanks for watching.
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Your videos are the best! I have watched a lot of YouTube Moringa videos, and yours I recommend all the time. Thank you very much for posting it with really good hands in information.