What fruit trees?

   / What fruit trees? #1  

widefat

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We are going to plant an orchard this year - in Central Va., zone 7.
What are ya'll planting for apple/peach/cherry/pear?
I have set aside about 2 ac -
We will be canning, cooking, and eating off the tree.
 
   / What fruit trees? #2  
I'm planning to plant some peach trees, The Red Haven is the first to sell out at our local farmers market. Peaches don't keep but for a few days though. So unless your into constant canning, you be the best of friends during the peak/peach season.
 
   / What fruit trees? #3  
We are going to plant an orchard this year - in Central Va., zone 7.
What are ya'll planting for apple/peach/cherry/pear?
I have set aside about 2 ac -
We will be canning, cooking, and eating off the tree.

I suggest that you check with your state Agricultural Extension Service; they can give you mountains of information on what trees grow and produce well in your area and how to care for them.
 
   / What fruit trees? #4  
Being a newbie forty years ago here are a few things that i noticed since then.

1. Don't plant anything within 50-75 feet of a hedge line of trees. There's too much shade, but more importantly, the hedge trees suck up the water.

2. Apples seem to get cross infected with cedar apple rust with too many cedar trees nearby.

3. Just plant the semi-dwarf varieties so picking isn't such a "tall" problem

4. Two (2) acres of trees will produce one hella-of-a lot of fruit........more than one can use for personal use.

5. Some years certain fruits are more abundant than others. That's Mother Nature's domain.

6. Dormant spraying seems worthwhile to me, but the scheduled sprays are too expensive, time consuming and not worth it for the amateur.

7. The squirrels and deer will definitely get their share.

8. Searching catalogs for the right variety is .......well........Try Starks company....in SE Missouri I think.

Cheers,
Mike
 
   / What fruit trees? #5  
I agree that two acres will produce a huge amount of fruit. And it will also demand a lot of work. While its not like planting vegetables or flowers, you will still be spending considerable time pruning, mowing, and spraying -- not to mention picking. And I wouldn't underestimate the spraying side of things. Any mono-crop will foster an increasingly intense invasion of insects, fungus, etc. over the years. And it takes some pretty substantial equipment to spray trees -- even semi-dwarfs. So unless you have some real background in this [and you may very well have] I would start small. I would also test out a number of varieties. Regardless of what the experts say, you never know how a species will react to your highly local conditions and soil. Nor can you know what diseases, fungus, etc. is lurking in the ground or neighboring trees. And then there are the deer and the bears -- nothing beats a good outside dog [one species I'm sure of].
 
   / What fruit trees? #6  
Yes, DrRod has added more good info....and P.S. i might add.....

1. Consider adding other crops to that area, such as strawberries, raspberries and some grape arbors. Each of these have a "culture" all their own to learn.

2. Maybe start an Asparagus bed. That's a high dollar item to buy in the store and good to eat if you like Asparagus.

3. Had four kids, a sergeant type dad and an energetic Mrs that put it all together. Making Christmas preserves (gifts) in decorative jars was a hit
with the rest of the family.

Cheers,
Mike
 
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   / What fruit trees? #7  
Mix 'em up! Pears, apples, plums, peaches. Will need a minimum of 2 varieties within each species. Different varieties ripen at different times. I would include red and golden delicious, mackintosh and maybe granny smith on the apple side. Pears...duchess and bartlett. Plums santa rosa and whatever you need as the cross pollinator. Not familiar with peaches (too cold around here). Ditto the advice to start small unless you are familiar with pruning techniques. A good nursery will advise on planting depth (need to keep that graft joint above ground or you'll get standard trees from semi dwarfs), spacing, etc. I think the trend now is to place a slow release fertilizer packet into the hole. And trunk guards are a necessity for rabbits, mice. How you protect the tender tops from deer is another question. A friend of mine built a 8' fence (has more in the fence than the trees)...something that may influence your size. You might want to dedicate some of your area to raspberries or grapes (or even hops if you want to experiment). It is a lot of work in the "formative" years but some people find it therapeutic...some people learn to hate it. Good luck!
 
   / What fruit trees? #8  
Yes, DrRod has added more good info....and P.S. i might add.....

1. Consider adding other crops to that area, such as strawberries, raspberries and some grape arbors. Each of these have a "culture" all their own to learn.

2. Maybe start an Asparagus bed. That's a high dollar item to buy in the store and good to eat if you like Asparagus.

3. Had four kids, a sargent type dad and an energetic Mrs that put it all together. Making Christmas preserves (gifts) in decorative jars was a hit
with the rest of the family.

Cheers,
Mike
In a previous residence I had a mix of trees. I remember one extreme drought year where a young plum tree started throwing off fruit at the rate of 5 lbs/day for 2 weeks (defense mechanism I guess). In addition to the fresh bounty we shared with co-workers I actually learned to love making jellies and jams...and always a welcome gift.
 
   / What fruit trees? #9  
A few more pears, and paw-paws. Look and see if your county conservation district is having a seedling sale, you can get nice trees for a discounted price.
Also an interesting concept in planting trees is guild planting. Where you place various plants around the base of the tree that are beneficial to the tree and do not require mowing under it.
 
   / What fruit trees? #10  
Take a look at the website of Lee Reich. His blog is incredible, and his books are almost as good.
A few more pears, and paw-paws. Look and see if your county conservation district is having a seedling sale, you can get nice trees for a discounted price.
Also an interesting concept in planting trees is guild planting. Where you place various plants around the base of the tree that are beneficial to the tree and do not require mowing under it.
 
   / What fruit trees? #11  
Dwarf trees planted 8' oc and 14 ft between rows = 388 trees per acre :D
 
   / What fruit trees? #12  
We are going to plant an orchard this year - in Central Va., zone 7.
What are ya'll planting for apple/peach/cherry/pear?
I have set aside about 2 ac -
We will be canning, cooking, and eating off the tree.

We are putting in 3 acres of trees this year in the mountains near Charlottesville. All Cider specific apples. And oddballs is right, if well spaced, 2 acres of semi-dwarf M-111 rootstock will produce about 1,000 bushels of apples at maturity.....approx 5 years old. That is a lot of apples. But if you love apples and want to sell some of them, it's a pretty good thing.
 
   / What fruit trees? #13  
Planted a dwarf apple tree in 1977 that had 5 different apple grafts on it. Bare root type at a cost of 1.99. 39 years later I wish I had bought two.
 
   / What fruit trees? #14  
Make sure you get cross pollinators when you choose your apple trees. I have 6 apple trees, and each tree has 2 pollinators next to it. As I recall red delicious and golden delicious are universal pollinators, and each other type will pollinate 1 or 2 other specific types. I had to map it out on paper to make sure I planted the right trees next to each other. Stark Brothers nursery's website will tell you which trees pollinate each variety.
 
   / What fruit trees? #15  
We are going to plant an orchard this year - in Central Va., zone 7.
What are ya'll planting for apple/peach/cherry/pear?
I have set aside about 2 ac -
We will be canning, cooking, and eating off the tree.

To be blunt--that is a butt load of trees if you are going to be planting them in any density. As others had mentioned, not only will it produce more than you can consume/give away, it will take a significant investment in time come harvest to properly process all of that fruit. Remember a good sized mature fruit tree will have a nasty habit of having almost all of its fruit ripen within the a week or two (three if you are lucky). To give you an example, we have 4 mature plums. When they start ripening fruit, my wife, FIL, me and the dogs cannot process/eat the fruit fast enough to keep it from spoiling.
 
   / What fruit trees? #16  
I suggest that you check with your state Agricultural Extension Service; they can give you mountains of information on what trees grow and produce well in your area and how to care for them.

This is very good advice!

Do your local research first before you plant trees that will not do well in your area or soil. Understand your soil, and understand which tree rootstocks will do best in the soil that you have.
 
   / What fruit trees? #17  
What kind of fruit are you looking to produce? How dense do you want the orchard to be? What rootstock are you using? What kind of disease control are you prepared to do and what level of soil amendment will you have to do? Those are some of the questions you need to address and answer to help yourself be ready for what you will face. And how will you deal with mother nature's uninvited dinner guests?
 
   / What fruit trees? #18  
We did some research, but found that everything we learned, we found something else that contradicted it. Finally we just went to Lowes and bought our fruit trees from them based on them selling what grows in our area. They have a money back guarantee that if the tree dies, they will replace it. We've replaced several apple trees because they died on us during the heat of summer. Apples seem like a bad idea, but Lowes has more choices and they keep giving us more trees to try. Figure it's just part of the overall fun of learning what works and what doesn't.

To water out trees, we place 5 gallon buckets next to them and fill each one up with the hose. Each bucket has a small quarter inch hole in the bottom of it, so the water drains out slowly. We feel this works better then sprinklers.
 
   / What fruit trees? #19  
Two acres is not too much ground for a homestead orchard if you vary the trees. Commercial orchards are designed to produce large quantities of uniform fruit. That's not what you want in a homestead orchard. Instead, you want a large variety of fruits from late spring to late fall. Many fruits, like cherries and some pears, are not self-fertile, so you need multiple varieties for pollination.

Apples have a lot of varieties. I love Gravensteins for cooking. They aren't the prettiest apple in the world, but they make great pies and applesauce. The new breeds like Fuji are very popular. You don't see many yellow transparents any more, but they are a very early apple that will give you fresh fruit a month before anything else, but don't keep well. Rome beauties and Jonathans are great winter apples if you have enough cold winter days, as is Granny Smith.

You need bing cherries, royal ann and pie cherries. You need 3 or 4 varieties of plum and Italian prunes. Don't forget figs, if your autumns are warm enough for them to ripen. Apricots. Bosc, comice, Bartlett and Asian pears. For peaches, I recommend sticking with free stone varieties if you want to can them. Paw-paws and persimmons. Don't forget the nut trees, like English walnut and hazelnut. Hazels are male and female, so plant half a dozen females and one or two male pollinators. There are blight resistant chestnuts on the market now, and there are also winter hardy almonds.
 
   / What fruit trees? #20  
Dwarf trees planted 8' oc and 14 ft between rows = 388 trees per acre :D

Planting trees that close together is a mistake. You want an orchard, not a thicket. '8 OC is espalier spacing. I would suggest planting on a grid that allows driving a tractor with mower or disc through the orchard in any direction, and of course you need at least 30' at the end of each row just to turn the tractor around. After the trees mature, even a 14 ft. spacing will be pretty tight. If you prune them to just an 8' crown you are left with only a 6' lane in the middle.
 

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