Thinking about adding fruit tree orchard in late fall

[Teddy12b]

Here's the situation. I want plant enought fruit trees to be a main supply of food for my family for the longest duration of the year as possible. I'm not trying to be a professional orchard, but I want to create a steady long term supply of food on my own land. In the spring of this year I went to Lowes as soon as they got their fruit trees in stock and I cherry picked (pun intended) the fruit trees that I wanted to have. I planted 5 apple trees, 2 pears, 2 peaches, 2 cherry trees. This year was outstanding as far as rain and weather goes and all but one of the trees survived and became very well established. As far as I'm concerned if the one tree that dies couldn't survive this year, then I'm better off without it.

Now here I am and I'm thinking of either expanding the current orchard, or creating a seperate one. We've had such great weather for getting trees this year that I want to plant more because you never know what the next year will bring, and I'd like to take advantage of getting the trees in the ground while everything is still dormant.

So here's some questions:
1.) Thanksgiving is next week, is it too late in the year to be planting trees? I'm assuming if the ground isn't frozen than I should be ok.

2.) My current orchard trees are planted in rows at 20' spacing. I'm not going to let these trees grow to their full height, and I'll probably cap them and keep them managable for picking. Should I even consider sticking a new fruit tree between the existing trees so that the spacing would be a tree every 10'? Part of me thinks the tighter spacing would be better for pollinating, but then another part of me thinks that it's just not going to be enough space for the trees in a few years and that I should just start another orchard nearby.

I'm leaning towards the seperate orchard in another location, but I'm certainly open to suggestions.

Another item of interest is that the trees I bought from Lowes were all semi dwarf and potted in 3.5 gallon containers. The trees I'd be buying are bare root, but will grow to be full size.

I'm turning into a fruit tree junkie and I don't know if I should start telling myself "No" sometimes. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

[rainbowgardener]

I went back through your old posts until I found one that says you are in NE Indiana. Please change your profile to reflect that, so we don't have to keep tracking it down.

I'm no expert, since I don't have room to grow fruit trees. But in my experience planting other kinds of trees, I think this is too late in our climate to plant trees. It isn't just is the ground unfrozen, so you can dig a hole. The tree needs some time before everything shuts down to put out some roots in its new location. If it were me, I would wait until spring at this point. But see what others with more fruit tree experience say.

Have you thought about growing some native fruits? Pawpaw and persimmon are native to our area and so are very hardy and carefree. Other native fruit trees include mulberries and serviceberries and some varieties of prunus - some plums and cherries. What about some nut trees? American hazelnut, pecan, black walnut, hickory are natives. If you want to grow food, nuts are high protein, nutritious food. Probably higher protein than any other plant food you can grow, except maybe soybeans.

[applestar]

Where to start...

Sorry if my reply is haphazard --

- need your location
- can't comment on current trees without knowing cultivar names and rootstocks they are on (if it was even mentioned on their tags)
- which leads me to say that I'm not a fan of lowes as reliable plant source for important projects
- If ground is not frozen, and depending on location, this could be a good time to plant bareroot dormant fruit trees. Sometimes planting in fall is not good for some fruit trees in some locations -- especially where it gets very very cold -- but the four kinds you've mentioned I think are all OK.
- very loosely speaking, apples and pears have similar needs and can be grouped together and cherries and peaches being stone fruits could be grouped together, bit I think the two groups have different needs and are not necessarily good grouped all together.

...noticed that you said new trees will be full sized bare roots trees. I would think full sized trees will overshadow the semi-dwarf trees if they are planted among them, though I must admit I don't have any experience with full sized fruit trees. Logically, I would guess you'd want to plant them to the north of the shorter trees.

Another thought is that "semi-dwarf" tree of one kind of fruit tree may grow to different size than another. All depends on the rootstock too as commented above.

[tomc]

Only the very smallest of dwarfing rootstock could be wedged into ten foot spacing. Even with agressive pruning 20 foot spacing is about right.

For standard trees 20 feet is real tight.

[JONA878]

Hi Teddy.

Firstly...are the original trees on a semi-dwarf stock too?
If they are.... then twenty foot spacing is huge especially if you plan to control their height to around ten foot or so.
Even our old open centre trees are only at fifteen foot.
However, to get your new plants to 'take' well in between already growing trees they must have good light and not suffer from domination by the existing trees.
So, if the older trees are still fairly young and not too large then I would definitely interplant.
You don't say what style of trees you are growing. Open centre trees require about a fifteen foot spacing but centre leader trained trees can go down to ten foot or so quite easily. ( Intense orchards go to a metre or so apart on stock MM9)
Glad you are planting 'bare root' trees. Maidens are by far the cheapest and ideal trees to plant.
Plant them once the soil starts to warm up in the spring so that the roots get growing straight away from planting.
If you can leave them at the nursery until then ...great.
If they are delivered to you before then...and the weather is very cold , then heal them in a trench and protect the roots with a good layer of straw until early spring. Check them regularly though as mice can set up home in this straw and chew the roots.
Hope that helps a little.

[Teddy12b]

I went back through your old posts until I found one that says you are in NE Indiana. Please change your profile to reflect that, so we don't have to keep tracking it down.

I'm no expert, since I don't have room to grow fruit trees. But in my experience planting other kinds of trees, I think this is too late in our climate to plant trees. It isn't just is the ground unfrozen, so you can dig a hole. The tree needs some time before everything shuts down to put out some roots in its new location. If it were me, I would wait until spring at this point. But see what others with more fruit tree experience say.

Have you thought about growing some native fruits? Pawpaw and persimmon are native to our area and so are very hardy and carefree. Other native fruit trees include mulberries and serviceberries and some varieties of prunus - some plums and cherries. What about some nut trees? American hazelnut, pecan, black walnut, hickory are natives. If you want to grow food, nuts are high protein, nutritious food. Probably higher protein than any other plant food you can grow, except maybe soybeans.

Thanks for pointing out that I needed to include my location. I have that updated now. I'm glad to hear you mention the idea of planting some native fruit trees, especially the pawpaw. In the last month, I've planted 6 pawpaw trees that were 2' high, and 6 pawpaw trees that were 3' high along with planting 50 seeds. All these trees were planted under the cover of existing taller trees to give them partial shade along a river bank. I'm really trying to get the paw paw trees going this year. I'm going to focus on planting persimmons in the spring of '14. Earlier this spring I planted 2 Bing Cherry trees and 1 Black Tartarian Cherry, along with peaches, pears, & hazelnut. In the spring I'm going to plant some Russian almond trees so I can get some of those going as well.

[Teddy12b]

Where to start...

Sorry if my reply is haphazard --

- need your location
- can't comment on current trees without knowing cultivar names and rootstocks they are on (if it was even mentioned on their tags)
- which leads me to say that I'm not a fan of lowes as reliable plant source for important projects
- If ground is not frozen, and depending on location, this could be a good time to plant bareroot dormant fruit trees. Sometimes planting in fall is not good for some fruit trees in some locations -- especially where it gets very very cold -- but the four kinds you've mentioned I think are all OK.
- very loosely speaking, apples and pears have similar needs and can be grouped together and cherries and peaches being stone fruits could be grouped together, bit I think the two groups have different needs and are not necessarily good grouped all together.

...noticed that you said new trees will be full sized bare roots trees. I would think full sized trees will overshadow the semi-dwarf trees if they are planted among them, though I must admit I don't have any experience with full sized fruit trees. Logically, I would guess you'd want to plant them to the north of the shorter trees.

Another thought is that "semi-dwarf" tree of one kind of fruit tree may grow to different size than another. All depends on the rootstock too as commented above.

I don't think the cultivator names or root stocks were labeled on the trees I bought from Lowes. I'm still a rookie at all of this and I didn't know to look for that information either so it could have been provided and I not noticed it.

[Teddy12b]

Only the very smallest of dwarfing rootstock could be wedged into ten foot spacing. Even with agressive pruning 20 foot spacing is about right.

For standard trees 20 feet is real tight.

I was afraid that 10' spacing was just going to be too tight. I appreciate you confirming that.

[Teddy12b]

Hi Teddy.

Firstly...are the original trees on a semi-dwarf stock too?
If they are.... then twenty foot spacing is huge especially if you plan to control their height to around ten foot or so.
Even our old open centre trees are only at fifteen foot.
However, to get your new plants to 'take' well in between already growing trees they must have good light and not suffer from domination by the existing trees.
So, if the older trees are still fairly young and not too large then I would definitely interplant.
You don't say what style of trees you are growing. Open centre trees require about a fifteen foot spacing but centre leader trained trees can go down to ten foot or so quite easily. ( Intense orchards go to a metre or so apart on stock MM9)
Glad you are planting 'bare root' trees. Maidens are by far the cheapest and ideal trees to plant.
Plant them once the soil starts to warm up in the spring so that the roots get growing straight away from planting.
If you can leave them at the nursery until then ...great.
If they are delivered to you before then...and the weather is very cold , then heal them in a trench and protect the roots with a good layer of straw until early spring. Check them regularly though as mice can set up home in this straw and chew the roots.
Hope that helps a little.

The original semi dwarf trees are on 20' spacing, but the rows are offset. For example I'll try to make a picture using text to show what I'm saying.

I would call the pattern below a 20' grid type of spacing. This is not exactly what I did
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*

I did 20' spacing, and then offset the next row 10' so it'd look like this
*___*___*___*___*
__*___*___*___*___*
*___*___*___*___*
__*___*___*___*___*
*___*___*___*___*
__*___*___*___*___*

Hopefullly that little example helps clear up what I did. The spacing of the trees was decided because I planted a lot of other trees in the same area and wanted them in perfect little orderly rows. The 20' spacing seemed to be a very good general rule for oaks, fruit trees, red maples and whatever else so that's how it came to be.

I'm planning on just letting the trees grow and fill in naturally. I'll trim the branches so that they are all growing outwards, and I'll trim the tip of the tree if it starts to get away from me, but generally my plan is to let the tree grow as nature allows it.

The trees were all ordered online and should arrive next week. I'm hoping that I'll receive them no later than Wednesday and that I'll be able to get them in the ground shortly after. I'll keep them in a 5 gallon bucket of water and straw in the garage until I can plant them, but I plan on getting them in the ground within a day or two at the most of receiving them. I've got some straw I can cover them with as a mulch to help them get through winter.

I always thought that you would only heel in a tree if the ground was frozen and you couldn't dig any further. I never really understood why heeling a tree in the dirt was better than just planting the thing to begin with. I'm certainly open to recommendations and I'd love to understand more about why people heel in a tree.

[applestar]

Be sure to put tree/trunk guards on them to protect from gnawing mice and rabbits, and you may need to provide more elaborate protectection against deer, etc. as well.

[Teddy12b]

I've been using drain tile cut to length of the lowest branch of the tree to protect the trees. As far as the deer go, well so far this hunting season I've struck out. I saw six deer yesterday while in my car, but nothing while I was wearing my little orange hat and carrying a rifle. I've got the cure for deer, I just struggle to get them on board with my plan to harvest organic meat.

[JONA878]

Hi Teddy.

Firstly...are the original trees on a semi-dwarf stock too?
If they are.... then twenty foot spacing is huge especially if you plan to control their height to around ten foot or so.
Even our old open centre trees are only at fifteen foot.
However, to get your new plants to 'take' well in between already growing trees they must have good light and not suffer from domination by the existing trees.
So, if the older trees are still fairly young and not too large then I would definitely interplant.
You don't say what style of trees you are growing. Open centre trees require about a fifteen foot spacing but centre leader trained trees can go down to ten foot or so quite easily. ( Intense orchards go to a metre or so apart on stock MM9)
Glad you are planting 'bare root' trees. Maidens are by far the cheapest and ideal trees to plant.
Plant them once the soil starts to warm up in the spring so that the roots get growing straight away from planting.
If you can leave them at the nursery until then ...great.
If they are delivered to you before then...and the weather is very cold , then heal them in a trench and protect the roots with a good layer of straw until early spring. Check them regularly though as mice can set up home in this straw and chew the roots.
Hope that helps a little.

The original semi dwarf trees are on 20' spacing, but the rows are offset. For example I'll try to make a picture using text to show what I'm saying.

I would call the pattern below a 20' grid type of spacing. This is not exactly what I did
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*
*__*__*__*__*

I did 20' spacing, and then offset the next row 10' so it'd look like this
*___*___*___*___*
__*___*___*___*___*
*___*___*___*___*
__*___*___*___*___*
*___*___*___*___*
__*___*___*___*___*

Hopefullly that little example helps clear up what I did. The spacing of the trees was decided because I planted a lot of other trees in the same area and wanted them in perfect little orderly rows. The 20' spacing seemed to be a very good general rule for oaks, fruit trees, red maples and whatever else so that's how it came to be.

I'm planning on just letting the trees grow and fill in naturally. I'll trim the branches so that they are all growing outwards, and I'll trim the tip of the tree if it starts to get away from me, but generally my plan is to let the tree grow as nature allows it.

The trees were all ordered online and should arrive next week. I'm hoping that I'll receive them no later than Wednesday and that I'll be able to get them in the ground shortly after. I'll keep them in a 5 gallon bucket of water and straw in the garage until I can plant them, but I plan on getting them in the ground within a day or two at the most of receiving them. I've got some straw I can cover them with as a mulch to help them get through winter.

I always thought that you would only heel in a tree if the ground was frozen and you couldn't dig any further. I never really understood why heeling a tree in the dirt was better than just planting the thing to begin with. I'm certainly open to recommendations and I'd love to understand more about why people heel in a tree.

The only reason we heal trees in Teddy is if the ground is not in a good state to plant. It may be too hard from frost, too wet and waterlogged through rain, or there just hasn't been time to get it prepared properly.
If the ground is good...plant straight away.
The twenty foot spacing you have got will allow your trees a huge amount of room. Offsetting the rows is a good practice as that too makes most use of the space provided.
If your trees are on a very dwarfing stock then they will have a job to fill the space you have allowed. So you will find you have very little pruning to do for a long time to come...other than keeping the top of the tree lighter than the bottom in strength. The reason you will have to do this is so that the main cropping wood on your trees is kept at a picking height that stays within a sensible reach.
If however they are on a stronger root stock then that spacing will fill in around year 8 - 10 and you will then have to watch your control over them as they will develop a pretty strong growth pattern.
Check the invoice or labels on your trees when they arrive and see what roots stock number they are on. It should be clearly marked.
Good luck either way.

[ReptileAddiction]

First off you can plant the trees as close as a few feet. This seems drastic but if you summer prune you can DEFINITELY do it. 20 feet is orchard spacing and the only reason they do that is to get large equipment and large crews of people in. Dave Wilson Nursery which produces most of the fruit trees for the western part of the U.S. I highly recommend only keeping the tree at most 10 feet so you can reach everything pretty much from the ground. It works amazingly well. When you keep trees small like this you obviously do not get as much fruit but do you really want over 1000 peaches for a week that will be bad a week later and every single one needs picked? I am sure you would much rather have 50 peaches a week for most of the summer which you can easily get if you intensively plant the trees and check maturation dates. I highly recommend reading all around Dave Wilson's site because they are the expert in this type of orchard maintenance. I will post links to their website, their youtube, and a very helpful maturation chart. You mentioned that you want to achieve having fruit most of the year which buying trees from lowes is not the way to do it. That way you can not make sure that you know when fruit will ripen etc. I know people that have fairly small orchards but literally have fruit year round. If you want that intensive planting is by far the best way to do that.

Website: http://www.davewilson.com/

Harvest Chart: http://www.davewilson.com/home-gardens/ ... vest-chart

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UClShqpLDCJ-Q97zk3tsYZAw

[Teddy12b]

I've watched a bunch of Dave Wilson you tube videos and he definitely knows what he's talking about. He's one of my favorite channels.

A new development in the trees. According to a tracking number, the trees will be delivered today. Right now it's 30 degrees out and yesterday the ground was frozen. I was really hoping to have one last warm spell where I could get the trees in the dirt before everything freezes. Unfortunately I missed that mark. I'm not going to be able to get the tree in the dirt right away and the forecast shows that the weather won't get close to 40 degrees until Thursday. I'm going to try my best to get these trees planted asap, but I think they are going to be spending a couple days in the garage in 5 gallon buckets soaking in water and straw. I really wish I would have gotten these in the ground last week, but that's the way the ball bounces some times.

It's kinda funny because yesterday when I was out walking on the hard frozen ground I was thinking to myself that I could completely understand why someone would heel in a tree if they found themselves in this situation.

As it stands now, I'll get the trees in the ground asap and give them a healthy dose of straw on top for some mulching.

[applestar]

they are going to be spending a couple days in the garage in 5 gallon buckets soaking in water and straw

You don't want to do that. That would asphyxiate the roots. Keep them in the package but open once and make sure that the roots are completely surrounded by wood shavings or shredded paper or whatever they used and that the material is damp but not soggy. Then wrap them back up in the plastic. Lay them on their sides or at 45° heel in angle and make sure the garage doesn't freeze (no lower than upper 20°s. If likely, then you should insulate them from the cold -- put them on flattened cardboard and cover the root zone with something -- blanket, a throw rug.

I can't remember it's better to keep them completely in the dark or in bright but not direct sunlight. I'm thinking bright light. Only soak the roots for a couple of hours before planting -- I believe no more than 4 hrs. 6 hrs at absolute most. I add a shovelful of finished compost to the soaking water and use de-chlorinated or rainwater.