Orchard Care

[Beekissed]

I thought I'd start a thread on orchards so that folks can throw ideas back and forth and maybe learn a thing or two. I know virtually bagel about orchards, though I have a small one now and have lived on land with a larger one, I know just enough to get myself in trouble and harm some trees.

Right now we have 14 apple trees, most of which were planted over 20 yrs ago and no one knows the variety. We planted 4 saplings last year my brother brought out...their names escape me. I know two of the older trees are early transparent varieties, but that's about it.

We also have 2 peach trees, both cling peaches, one yellow and one white. Last year was the first real crop we've had on them in the 20+ yrs they've been on this land. Squirrels and deer usually ate all the peaches before we ever got to see one ripen, but things have changed here and no squirrels or deer are getting to those trees now. I also pruned and fed those trees for the first time in their lives and they started producing.

Last year we had a good little crop, what we could keep from the dog and the chickens. The same dog that kept the squirrels and deer away is also the worst predator of the fruit, sad to say. This year I'll surround the trees at ripening time with deer netting so that I can try and keep more for us.

We had to prop branches due to the weight and will have to do so again this year. Last year I froze them, but this year I'll can...the frozen peaches turned to mush when thawed. This pic was some of the unripened fruit I had to pick while still unripened to keep the animals from eating them...placed them between two sheets and they ripened pretty quickly.

Here's a few from last year...the marker shows the relative size of the fruit.

I pruned and fed the apple trees a few years ago, which had not been done in all their lives, and started getting fruit....but the squirrels stripped them before any fruit could ripen. This year I have cats on the land and I haven't seen a squirrel for a good long while, so we may just get to taste the apples on these older trees for the first time.

I made some mistakes in pruning when I did the initial pruning and these trees will likely take some long time to recover from that, if they ever do, but they are still trying to live and produce, so I'll not lose heart.

Anyone else trying to grow food in the trees? I know Lazy Gardener has trees, shrubs AND vines of fruit she is growing on her place, so I hope she'll discuss those here.

 

[freemotion]

I can't say I know much about Orchard care but I do know that suddenly in the past two or three years my trees are producing. I'll tell you what I did differently to make this happen. Or at least I think it's what made it happen.

I mulched heavily using the BTE method of free ramial wood chips from local tree trimmers. I've refreshed the mulch a couple of times as it breaks down. I added wine cap mushroom spawn to help break the wood chips down faster and also there's a symbiotic relationship between the mushroom mycelium and plants in that it helps the plants uptake minerals.

I prune regularly. While they're dormant is best, but if it doesn't happen you can prune almost any time. I'm going to be pruning in the next week or so. Since I missed the ideal time, I was waiting for the sap to stop running heavily. Now the trees are leafed out so I can also feed them to the goats. I'll do it over a period of several days.

My pruning method is pretty basic. Cut off anything that grows completely vertically. Cut off any branches that cross each other. Cut off branches that are going to make me have to use a big ladder to pick any fruit that might grow there. And finally, step back and take a look and cut off enough of the remaining branches that I could throw a cat through the tree in any direction. Not that I would, but I could!

I fed the trees with some minerals. I used a foliar feed that I bought from the chapter leader of our local BFA.

And finally, when the trees are blooming I go look for pollinators. I wasn't finding any so I used an artist paint brush to pollinate the flowers. I just touched the center of each flower and just moved from flower to flower like a bee would. I got a nice crop of fruit the following fall. I still hand pollinated last year even though I had a beehive because we had a cool spring and my bees were low in numbers. They never made it to my fruit trees. This year I went into spring with 6 surviving hives and that seemed to be the magic number for my property. In spite of the very cold spring again all my fruit was pollinated by my bees. I will need to pull a lot of peaches off the peach tree throughout the season and also prop up some branches. There are enough peaches on that tree to take the whole thing down. It's very exciting. Everything else on my property is developing fruit in spite of the cold.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I've got several fruit trees - wouldn't exactly call it an orchard though. Citrus fruits are pretty easy to grow here. We've got several lemon trees that bear profusely. Unfortunately, I totally forgot about my baby lime tree when we had our one and only freeze last winter and lost the tree. But, I've got two persimmons, a kumquat and two pomegranate trees also. None of them are mature, but I get a couple of persimmons a year and they're sooooo good! My neighbor has a blood orange that does well here - I need to get a couple of them too. It's hard to get stone fruit to do well here because we just don't get cold enough. But, there are some low-chill varieties that will sometimes do well. We have a great nursery about 45 minutes from here - not one of the chains - but a really nice one that stocks mostly stuff that does well here. I need to go shopping!

 

[freemotion]

I wish I could source enough chips to cover my orchard at a good depth. I've tried to substitute with leaves, grass clippings, thin layers of chips when I have them, etc. but there's nothing to replace a thick depth of wood chips for deep composting nutrients getting to the roots. All of that did help them produce, along with the pruning, but I think they could do much better if they had better soil to live in.

Right now I have CP rings around the saplings so I can get a good depth of compost around their roots at the drip line but as they grow that won't do much.

My peach trees seem to self cull and are doing so even now...the dogs are cleaning up the culls steadily.

Free, that's dedication, to paint brush all your apple blossoms by hand!

Not dedication, desperation! I didn't pollinate all the blossoms, just what could be easily reached. It took maybe a half hour to an hour to do three trees and some currants and it worked. I could tell where my paintbrush had been, easily, by where the fruit was developing. I lost steam with the currants and it was also obvious.

I'm so thankful for the bees. It really highlights the problems with pollinators. When I was a kid you couldn't go near an apple tree in bloom as the entire tree was humming with bees, which could be heard easily as you approached. Now I have to get close to my trees and watch for a few minutes to see a handful of honeybees doing their jobs. My peach tree, the first to bloom, had a bit of a hum going on, but then the wild trees, maples and such, bloomed when the apples/pear/currants bloomed so there were less bees in those trees this spring. But enough, apparently, as the fruit is developing nicely.

 

[Beekissed]

Took a few pics of some of the apple trees today....not sure if you can make out the little apples, but they have a good crop of them on there this year. This is about the time the squirrels start stealing them...but, no squirrels. Gots cats now.

This may just be the first year in over 20 yrs we actually get to taste a ripened apple off one of our trees.

 

[NH Homesteader]

That's great thanks! Sent the links to my husband, he's more apt to be the one doing it. Many, many very old trees here. Rough shape, most are rather tall... Pretty right now though!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I totally forgot about my fig three! It is huge and bears, and bears, and bears. I kind of forget about it until it's time to start picking. DH can't really eat 'em because of the high sugar content. Because of that, I usually dry the fruit instead of making preserves. However, I might just make some preserves for myself this year!

 

[Beekissed]

I wish I could source enough chips to cover my orchard at a good depth. I've tried to substitute with leaves, grass clippings, thin layers of chips when I have them, etc. but there's nothing to replace a thick depth of wood chips for deep composting nutrients getting to the roots. All of that did help them produce, along with the pruning, but I think they could do much better if they had better soil to live in.

Right now I have CP rings around the saplings so I can get a good depth of compost around their roots at the drip line but as they grow that won't do much.

My peach trees seem to self cull and are doing so even now...the dogs are cleaning up the culls steadily.

Free, that's dedication, to paint brush all your apple blossoms by hand!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Figs are starting to ripen! YAY!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Dad-gum it - sorry about the peach tree...

Looks like we're going to have a decent citrus year. One of my lemon trees is absolutely loaded...the other two-not so much. They're not as well established as the first one - so I'm not gonna worry about it. My kumquat tree that was planted last spring is covered with blooms right now and I can see little tiny kumquats behind them. The pomegranate tree has one pomegranate on it - but that's better than the two persimmon trees that have nothing, zero, nada...UGH! And, I lost my lime tree in the two days that we had a freeze this past winter. Geeze louise - everything else made it so I wonder why the lime was so fragile.