How many fruit trees?

I started a small orchard this year - really small - 2 semi dwarf apples, 1 dwarf peach and 1 dwarf nectarine and a "rescue" apple of unknown type (appears to be semi dwarf). The bare root stock has grown well and I might let one of the apples set a few fruit next year, although I think I'm going to give everyone else another year to become better established before letting them ripen fruit. My question is this: How many trees do you think an inexperienced person with a full time job can take care of. Right now my little garden and the trees take up less than 5 hours a week. My DH is likely going back to Iraq for a year, so I will have to be able to do everything myself. I'm going to purchase an ATV mount sprayer for dormant oil & such. I have water out where the trees are, but no electricity. Right now, if everything were to ripen on schedule (ha, ha), I would be harvesting June through August. Any suggestions or general thoughts welcomed.

Thank you. Karla

Golly Karla, I've grown fruit trees and berries since my kids were small, and there are so many variables that I don't have a clue as to how to answer your question. I started with 3 apples 2plums 1peach and 1pear. Everything but the pear was a lot of work for a small reward. I tried cherries along the way. Not much luck, so they were booted out to make room for persimmons. Now I have 4 figs 3 pears and 2 persimmons. I'm always open to adding another fruit if I can find a variety that will be happy with what I can give it.

The key is to find what grows well on your land in your weather without a lot of help.

I'm hoping to produce as much of what my DH and I eat as possible, but he doesn't work so we have lots of man-hours to give. Right now I'm planning 11 trees -- 3 apples, 2 cherries, 2 peaches, 2 pears and 2 plums. I'm also hoping to have blueberries, cranberries, grapes, kiwi and raspberries along with as much vegetable garden as we can use. I have my fingers crossed for chickens and goats, but I'm not holding my breath on those.

I'm researching to find the most hardy and low-maintenance plants for my area which I hope will reduce work somewhat. Of course, what I'd like and what I get might be a lot different! :-)

I have had really good luck with asparagus too. Delicious (if you like asparagus) low-maintenance and a really beautiful plant. Oops, wrong forum but a great thing to grow, anyway!

Hi there,

I have 31 fruit trees in my front yard.
Orchard fruit on semi dwarf rootstocks, and citrus fruit.

You can put many trees on a small lot, the key is to keep them pruned to a hight not much higher than a person, and NEVER let them grow any higher. There is a website that is super helpful when you want to be a "backyard orchard" grower, http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/BOC_what-is.html

Go have a look, you'll get lost for hours!

I use that Dave Wilson method as my excuse for why I have so many fruit trees in my backyard. So far I've been able to keep the trees under control. But most of them have only been in the ground 1 to 2 years.
Here is what I have.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/681568/
Ray

I think that for most of us it is better to keep it simple...short trees, not too many but well pruned and cared for. I also like to keep expenses down with just a hand carrried sprayer. Of the apples I have, only Red Delicious keeps any length of time and it just gets sweeter and jucier into January. Course you have to pick before it falls on the ground or it won't keep.

But Indy, I keep it simple too, short trees, well pruned, and well cared for! My trees are as high (or low ) as I am!

I think the Dave method would also be very good for trying to control the birds. In the past I have always been unable to keep the birds from the fruit because my trees were so big. Now I might be able to come up with some managable netting.

I think the first thing I would think of if I lived where you do Karla, Is availabilty of water..

Then, - This is my theory anyway -- and not that I have followed my own advice :).. I would plant the trees that I love the taste of the fruit that are the hardest and most expensive to find in the stores. If I love an elusive heirloom variety I would spend my time growing that instead of something easy to find in the store. This year I ordered a couple white apricot.. and I love white peaches..

I never worry about having too much produce. 4 trees one year might produce just enough for your family while the next year may be enough for the neighborhood.. And it's ok with me if the wildlife get some of the extra stuff. The squirrels are having the time of the lives and feeding themselves on the walnuts I didn't get picked up.

I am not so limited on space .. But, I also plant trees knowing that it takes some time to get to the producing stage. I am hoping to retire in a few years and have more time to put up more produce.. Well, anyway, I could talk about this subject endlessly.. Will you have more time at some point in the future that you could devote to your orchard.?

rayman can you post some pics of your fruit trees

Being that I am barely 5 ft tall when I stretch, that could make for some really short trees. Still, having lived my life climbing on boxes, chairs and step stools, there is a certain alure to being able to pick fruit without such perches. With our occationally gusty winds, might be safer, too.

The peach is supposed to be able to set fruit even if the winters are 30 below freezing. Unfortunately, especially since this is it's first winter, we are now testing that theory. I looked today and the buds Appear to be alive and OK, but I guess we won't know until spring. Well, I hadn't planned on letting it set fruit this spring, anyway.

We have lots of water from a good well with an aquifer charged by the 14 mile long lake less than a mile from us. Last year DH and DS ran water to just about everywhere in the front two acres. The back three still don't have water. Our first summer I watered carrying 5 gallon buckets. NOT recommended! Now I have drip irrigation & hoses. I also have a 15 gallon ATV mounted water tank... I have this fantasy that I will grow an oak way out in the back, and DH is unwilling to run water there for "only one or two" trees.

I did actually follow your theory, KathyJo - I never liked peaches or nectarines until I had a farm fresh one in Georgia. Also, when I moved to the San Joaquin Valley, CA 15 years or so ago, I discovered Fujii apples. I'm not a big gala apple fan, but it is my polinator and it is vigorous and cheap. I'm hoping that I don't like them much because I've only had store bought ones. If I don't like them fresh, well, there is always apple pie! But here in Nevada, it's almost impossible to get decent fruit at the grocery. I like the stuff from the Farmer's Market, but even then, most of that is trucked in from CA. NV just isn't a big Ag state as far as produce goes (although I had some wonderful local grown yellow squash last season).

gg - see the link I provided above.

kmom246 you will enjoy your own fruit trees more than you can imagine. We have a home orchard and love growing all kinds fruit. Over time you will get better and better at it. So many varieties of fruit trees are out
there to choose from and it's rewarding picking your own fruit from your own trees. Fruit is expensive at the grocery stores and is'nt always that good. Like Kathy Jo says you will need to spend some quality time with your fruit trees but in turn the reward is great. I acually enjoy the time I spend working with my fruit trees and learning how better to grow and care for them. Get on line and read all you can about growing a particular fruit tree you like then go for it!!

Cuckoo

Alot of good information here. I would like to try what kathyjo said about scarce, expensive fruit at the stores and see if you can grow in your zone. I wish that I would have either bought all self pollinating varieties or would have kept better records as to which tree is what kind. I drowned my share of fruit trees (oaks too). When I was a teenager I moved in with my mom and stepdad. We had 2 or 3 peach trees and 2 pear trees that did really well other than birds got alot of peaches and the pears had scars quite often. I do not think he ever pruned the trees either. I bought more fruit trees to replace the drowned ones hoping I get some pollination. I bought two almond trees which are supposed to pollinate peach trees if flowering at the right time. I have heard that crabapples flower a long time and are suppossed to be good for all apples. I always end up getting long winded and getting off the main subject. Sorry, Mike

Not much chance of drowning trees (or anything else) here in the High Desert :-) I agree with you, Mike, that self pollinating varieteies should be the way to go. It has been way complicated to see what apple trees I might want and what ones I might need to get to pollinate them. In the end, I just got the Fujii and the Gala.

By the way, Cuckoo, since my kids are mostly grown and don't need so much tending to, I am enjoying spending time talking to my trees and hovering over them. I really like the fact that they don't give smart-alect replies, too. My Mom teases me because I have more photos of my plant babies than I do of my (human) children! Here's some photos of the "orchard" from last summer http://kmom246.icfsc.com/orchard2006.htm ...speaking of photos, I should go out and take some more of them so I can see their winter structure before they leaf out in the spring. I hope I get flowers this year, but I think I will not let any of them set fruit so they can concentrate on growing strong.

Thanks, everyone, for the ideas and encouragement... catalogs are arriving daily and I am drooling at the next set of trees to add to the orchard...

Thanks for sharing the photos with us. I borrowed a magazine on pruning from a friend and I pruned mine yesterday. My first time and was very reluctant to cut anything and probably should have pruned more. Today I tied weights to some of the limbs to try for a 60degree angle. Kind of nervous about doing that though. Are you going to try to prune? Trees don't talk back, have cell phones, wreck your cars, and are never called teenagers.

Kmom246,

I enjoyed seeing you website.. Neat pictures.. I love your peach tree.! Funny what your are saying about taking more pictures of your plants than kids.. One of the best things about my digital camera is taking pictures of my plants and flowers and enjoying them again and again over the winter months. Although I think I still take more pictures of the Grandkids than flowers.. But, Then there are the Grandkids posing in front of the flowers ......

Mike, I find out lots of information from people that get long winded and off the subject..

KathyJo, Thanks for the comforting reply.

I have been reading the Dave Wilson website, and getting as much information as I can about "high-density" planting. I started with 7 citrus trees planted about 4 feet apart (hedgerow style), and they are doing quite well, with the exception of the ever-present leafminers here in Miami. I just planted 3 mango trees, with room left for a fourth, to hopefully give me mangoes from May to October. I planted them according to the "4 in one hole" method described on the DW website, using 24" spacing between trees. (cutting them back to 15" as recommended to start the branching and shaping process was quite painful!) I have an avocado tree of unknown variety, that has never fruited in the 3 years I've lived here, even though it's almost 15 feet tall, so I'm thinking about tearing that out and planting 3 or 4 in one hole of successively ripening avocados varieties where the tree now stands.

What I haven't found during my research is how this 3 or 4 to a hole planting affects tree strength. It seems to me that after the trees get some size on them, that the weight distribution of their canopies will tend to make them pull away from the center of the group. I'm sure that pruning could correct that problem as far as the shape of the tree group, but I am more concerned about the strength of the tree during a windy thunderstorm, tropical storm or (I hate to mention it)...a hurricane. With most of the tree's foliage and fruit weight basically on one side of the tree, it doesn't seem like it would take much wind to snap the trunk or uproot the tree, depending on from which direction the wind was blowing.

I love the idea of having several different varieties of fruits in the space of a few trees, but I'd hate to lose some or all of them during our frequent storms. We have a difficult enough time trying to keep single trunk trees pruned to balance the canopy weight and open enough to allow high winds to pass through the canopy. These multiple trees in one hole are pruned closer to the ground, so it may not be as affected by the winds as a large tree, but the mango I just pulled out of the ground was only 5 feet tall, and was blown over by Wilma.

Any thoughts on this subject, or am I worrying too much.

Thanks,
Jerry