Building a field gate

[oosik]

goeduck - that is a BIG mistake I made when I planted my orchard. I planted semi-dwarf. Easier to prune - easier to pick - unfortunately,,,,easier for the deer to harvest.

I have raccoons. A very active family down in the cattails on this end on my lake. They, obviously, enjoyed MY apples also. The adults would send the youngsters up the trees and out the branches to harvest apples. The adult would wait, on the ground, for "falling fruit". Smaller critters can go further out on smaller limbs.

I hope they got stomach aches from all the green apples they ate .................

 

[goeduck]

The down side to full size trees is pruning them, they can grow to 25 or 30 feet tall. After a certain height they just grow however they grow. Plus you end up picking from a ladder. But that is how we have always done it, so it seems normal to me.

 

[oosik]

From my front porch I can easily see all of the old orchard area. Two times I saw this. Deer and adult 'coons out in the orchard. Young 'coons up the trees harvesting the apples. It was a race to see who got to the fallen apples first. Young 'coons bringing the apples down to lower branches so they could eat them and not loose balance and fall. Old 'coons getting frustrated and "barking" at young 'coons.

I realized it was a lost cause. The trees were old and so, four year ago, I ripped the last four out and converted them to bar-b-que chips.

Now I go to an area north of Spokane, Green Acres, and buy the apples by the box. I had apple trees for 35 years. Guess that's all I will get.

If I planted another apple tree it would be to watch ALL the wildlife and their nightly squabbles. Besides - the fruit trees attracted a couple types I never really learned to appreciated.

Skunks and porcupines.

However, the up side - my field gates DO keep the neighbor's cows out of my yard.

 

[goeduck]

The down side to full size trees is pruning them, they can grow to 25 or 30 feet tall. After a certain height they just grow however they grow. Plus you end up picking from a ladder. But that is how we have always done it, so it seems normal to me.

I spent a number of hours pruning my 60 or so young apple trees last weekend. Some are getting high enough that I need to top them but I will have to use an orchard ladder to get up there.

 

[oosik]

Here is one of my three "field gates". It's designed, engineered & constructed to accomplish just one task. Keep the cows out. It does that very well.

Heck, ning - the gate you constructed is a whole lot fancier than the first - outer - gate on my driveway.