rty007
Lovin' The Homestead
It is a little translation from a book I found
Introduction
First thing to consider is the amount of fruit you will need, throughout the year. It is advisable to eat about 100 KG (220lb) of fruit per person per year. So if you are feeding a 4 people you will need approximately 400 KG (1000lbs) of fruit. There are some convincing ideas on why you should eat fresh or home preserved fruits, but I think there is no need to preach those to you folks here on SS
Yield planning
But you may ask yourself, how am I gonna know, what yield can I expect from a apple tree, a berry bush or a strawberry bush. How am I gonna how much to plant to get the amount sufficient for my family. With strawberries it is quite simple, in the second year after planting, you should expect a yield of about 50-100 KG from a area of 100m2 ( apr 1000 sq.ft.), it is also fairly easy to estimate the number of berry bushes to plant. It is harder on the other hand to come up with a reasonable number of fruit trees to plant. You can however consider, that a small homestead orchard, so a orchard that might not be professionally maintained, should give anything from 50 to 150 kg from seed fruit such as apples and pears, and about half of that from stone trees such as cherry, plum.
Choosing the site
Every farmer/homesteader should know what a fertile ground looks like. Those are soils that are not to sandy, nor to clay(ish), a future orchard owner, should perform a very simple research on his premises for a best spot for his orchard. First of all, one should observe the grounds and dig two holes into the ground on a possible orchard site. Through observing, the grounds one could see, whether the soil is sandy, always dry and light, or clayish always wet, retaining water after a good rain or a spring melt down, for a long time.
A hole, is dug 5 to 6 feet deep, this allows you to observe the construction of soil in a more complex way, it shows you wheter the soil is sandy or clayish, it might show you, the ground water levels, you should also observe the colour of every layer of the ground, the darker it is, the more nutrition it contains.
A shallow ground water, is not good for orchard plants, couse their root system can not develop in the ground constantly saturated with water. THE BEST spot for a orchard would have a deep ground water level, meaning at least 5 feet. Sweet cherry and walnut requires the deepest soil, 5-6 feet, on a soil with water levels between 3-5 feet sweet cheery and will grow, however it will perform some what less then expected, you can o the other hand grow successfully apples, pears, plums and cherries.
A Hardpan can be a major problem, causing root growth to stop, and not allowing the water to drain, which causes root rot.
Just because, you do not have a perfect soil for orchard, does not mean you are doomed, and nothing can be done. In most cases, the land is depleted and the soil sandy, which can be fixed, by adding some clayish soil and some manure. Here in the book they say, that in places with water abundant, the sandy soil does not pose a problem, couse you can always water the orchard, and increase fertility using fertilisers, but that is not exactly SS
Then they go on about best suited varieties forsome parts of Poland, but you would have to contact your local something for that.
Life span of trees
fruit trees are long living plants, for example walnut and apple trees can live up to 200 years, however in a orchard they usually reach the maximum of about 50 years, cherries, sweet cherries and plums will stay in a orchard for 30 years, apricot for 20 years while a peach tree will average a 15 years life spam (ok, that is probably considering that the book was written in the late 70ties. and it has changed quite a lot since then).
Trunk hight
Observing some old time orchards and those more recent, one could see one obvious distinction. In the old times, they mostly planted high trunk trees, while today you will mostly see low trunk trees. Even though it is just a casual term, but it is often distinct that:
up to 1'4" is a bush type tree
1'4"-2'8" is low trunk tree
2'8"-4' is a middle hight trunk tree
over 4' is a high trunk tree
those old time orchards usual had trunks approximately 5-6 feet high in order for a ox or a horse dragging a plough or a harrow to be able to get under it, to grow other crops under the canopy. Nowadays the trees are established at a low trunk, with no other crops grow in between, which means that the trees start fruiting earlier and fruit heavier, their maintenance as well as picking fruit is less labour intensive.
The old school orchard, especially apple trees would grow to a hight of approximately 20-25 feet and have a canopy span of about 20 feet, but for a tree to reach that size it would have to grow for about 15 years, while today's average commercial orchard tree reaches it's top potential at the 4 year of growth, with the hight of no more then 6-7feet and a canopy span of 3-6 feet.
On another note, from my own research on that topic, If I were to plan a orchard, I would never choose the big trees, couse pollinating might be a problem, how so? You might be asking yourself right now, you let the bees do their thing and you are good to go. The problem is, that if the trees are tall, the bees will start thinking... BOY is windy today, why should I try flying up there where the wind is, trying to sit on the wiggling and wobbling flower, losing my precious nectar-energy fly time, when I can just sit there on the ground and forage some just as good nectar from there. In the meantime you are kind a sr***ed, but that can be prevented by placing wind breakers, I suppose you could plant some high growing trees, BUT it is way easier maintaining a 10 feet high birch tightly spaced box all around the orchard, then a 20-25 feet wind breaker, which would have to be pruned annually not to overcrowd the fruits
MORE TO COME: grafting, shaping and pruning
Introduction
First thing to consider is the amount of fruit you will need, throughout the year. It is advisable to eat about 100 KG (220lb) of fruit per person per year. So if you are feeding a 4 people you will need approximately 400 KG (1000lbs) of fruit. There are some convincing ideas on why you should eat fresh or home preserved fruits, but I think there is no need to preach those to you folks here on SS
Yield planning
But you may ask yourself, how am I gonna know, what yield can I expect from a apple tree, a berry bush or a strawberry bush. How am I gonna how much to plant to get the amount sufficient for my family. With strawberries it is quite simple, in the second year after planting, you should expect a yield of about 50-100 KG from a area of 100m2 ( apr 1000 sq.ft.), it is also fairly easy to estimate the number of berry bushes to plant. It is harder on the other hand to come up with a reasonable number of fruit trees to plant. You can however consider, that a small homestead orchard, so a orchard that might not be professionally maintained, should give anything from 50 to 150 kg from seed fruit such as apples and pears, and about half of that from stone trees such as cherry, plum.
Choosing the site
Every farmer/homesteader should know what a fertile ground looks like. Those are soils that are not to sandy, nor to clay(ish), a future orchard owner, should perform a very simple research on his premises for a best spot for his orchard. First of all, one should observe the grounds and dig two holes into the ground on a possible orchard site. Through observing, the grounds one could see, whether the soil is sandy, always dry and light, or clayish always wet, retaining water after a good rain or a spring melt down, for a long time.
A hole, is dug 5 to 6 feet deep, this allows you to observe the construction of soil in a more complex way, it shows you wheter the soil is sandy or clayish, it might show you, the ground water levels, you should also observe the colour of every layer of the ground, the darker it is, the more nutrition it contains.
A shallow ground water, is not good for orchard plants, couse their root system can not develop in the ground constantly saturated with water. THE BEST spot for a orchard would have a deep ground water level, meaning at least 5 feet. Sweet cherry and walnut requires the deepest soil, 5-6 feet, on a soil with water levels between 3-5 feet sweet cheery and will grow, however it will perform some what less then expected, you can o the other hand grow successfully apples, pears, plums and cherries.
A Hardpan can be a major problem, causing root growth to stop, and not allowing the water to drain, which causes root rot.
Just because, you do not have a perfect soil for orchard, does not mean you are doomed, and nothing can be done. In most cases, the land is depleted and the soil sandy, which can be fixed, by adding some clayish soil and some manure. Here in the book they say, that in places with water abundant, the sandy soil does not pose a problem, couse you can always water the orchard, and increase fertility using fertilisers, but that is not exactly SS
Then they go on about best suited varieties forsome parts of Poland, but you would have to contact your local something for that.
Life span of trees
fruit trees are long living plants, for example walnut and apple trees can live up to 200 years, however in a orchard they usually reach the maximum of about 50 years, cherries, sweet cherries and plums will stay in a orchard for 30 years, apricot for 20 years while a peach tree will average a 15 years life spam (ok, that is probably considering that the book was written in the late 70ties. and it has changed quite a lot since then).
Trunk hight
Observing some old time orchards and those more recent, one could see one obvious distinction. In the old times, they mostly planted high trunk trees, while today you will mostly see low trunk trees. Even though it is just a casual term, but it is often distinct that:
up to 1'4" is a bush type tree
1'4"-2'8" is low trunk tree
2'8"-4' is a middle hight trunk tree
over 4' is a high trunk tree
those old time orchards usual had trunks approximately 5-6 feet high in order for a ox or a horse dragging a plough or a harrow to be able to get under it, to grow other crops under the canopy. Nowadays the trees are established at a low trunk, with no other crops grow in between, which means that the trees start fruiting earlier and fruit heavier, their maintenance as well as picking fruit is less labour intensive.
The old school orchard, especially apple trees would grow to a hight of approximately 20-25 feet and have a canopy span of about 20 feet, but for a tree to reach that size it would have to grow for about 15 years, while today's average commercial orchard tree reaches it's top potential at the 4 year of growth, with the hight of no more then 6-7feet and a canopy span of 3-6 feet.
On another note, from my own research on that topic, If I were to plan a orchard, I would never choose the big trees, couse pollinating might be a problem, how so? You might be asking yourself right now, you let the bees do their thing and you are good to go. The problem is, that if the trees are tall, the bees will start thinking... BOY is windy today, why should I try flying up there where the wind is, trying to sit on the wiggling and wobbling flower, losing my precious nectar-energy fly time, when I can just sit there on the ground and forage some just as good nectar from there. In the meantime you are kind a sr***ed, but that can be prevented by placing wind breakers, I suppose you could plant some high growing trees, BUT it is way easier maintaining a 10 feet high birch tightly spaced box all around the orchard, then a 20-25 feet wind breaker, which would have to be pruned annually not to overcrowd the fruits
MORE TO COME: grafting, shaping and pruning
