Planting a small orchard.

[Mailman]

Nice assortment of fruit trees you’ve got there! At our last house we had a Santa Rosa plum tree and the fruit we got off of it was small just like yours, but what it lacked in size it made up for in volume. It would fill up a 39 gallons trash can! The fruit was very tasty and the birds would just have a heyday with it. We tried covering it with a net one year and somehow they still got in there.
We also had a pink grapefruit, naval orange, Meyers lemon, red flame grapes and a tiny little dwarf peach tree that grew the most beautiful full size peaches!

 

[DogBunny]

Wow, I'd be ecstatic with a 2 gallon bucket of plums. One year it'll happen.

 

[lakeview]

Update
Four of the six trees set fruit this spring. The two closest to the dusty road are slower in all respects.
All have been pruned several times to try to keep them compact but the peach trees just sprout up again.
I will probably trim most of the fruit off the trees to let the strength go into the roots for another season.

 

[lakeview]

Fruits of my Labour
Last year I trimmed all the blooms off that had set fruit and this year the tree is loaded with peaches at least 40 of them.
The other peach tree is about the same but a much later maturity; one pear tree has lots on it, the other has been sickly from the start and similarly for the 2 apple trees.
Pleased that the orchard has taken hold, especially since we are moving this fall.

 

[Paul Sutton]

My fig tree (See Entry #4), which I grew from a cutting started to do well on piss, but this did not last. It remained poorly for some 2 years and only started to take off last year. This year I planted it in the ground in early Spring with plenty of horse manure/blood/bone and it has continued to do extremely well. Perhaps your pear/apple trees just need plenty of slow release fertilizer??? Also, our dog pisses around the fig tree's base each day.... I hope to get 3 nice figs this year.

 

[Jim]

Also, our dog pisses around the fig tree's base each day.... I hope to get 3 nice figs this year.

I'd give 'em a good sniff first.....

 

[sleddog83]

Paul, We had a bumper crop of figs this year,sans piss. Probably the heat waves. We might get a second crop.

 

[Boog]

Well, my 3 wooden raised beds are now 2 cinder block raised beds. The bed closest tot he fence just does not get enough light to yield much food so it is now my compost bin area. I laid some paver down to make turn over easier; at least the clean up. I have two bens at present but one was emptied to top coat the two beds I just built.

The beds are not perfectly aligned but they are level.

The bed closest to the house is my asparagus bed. I have not decided what I will plant in the other bed just yet. I'm thinking either okra, eggplant or long beans, maybe a mix of these.

 

[Jim]

Well, my 3 wooden raised beds are now 2 cinder block raised beds. The bed closest tot he fence just does not get enough light to yield much food so it is now my compost bin area. I laid some paver down to make turn over easier; at least the clean up. I have two bens at present but one was emptied to top coat the two beds I just built.

The beds are not perfectly aligned but they are level.

The bed closest to the house is my asparagus bed. I have not decided what I will plant in the other bed just yet. I'm thinking either okra, eggplant or long beans, maybe a mix of these.
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Nice Boog!!
I'm thinkin' about doing the same or similar this spring. The wood on my beds are gettin' pretty bad.

 

[Boog]

The compost in that bin won't be ready till April or so thus I may need to buy some form a local nursery. I plan to plant green in the block openings and the front flower beds need more top coats as well.

 

[Mikey]

I love figs and planted a small tree a couple of years ago. The tree did poorly!! So this year for a month I feed it a cup of good old fashion piss each day and it has really taken off. So just remember, the best fertilizer is often close to hand. I am now giving my olive tree a special treat each day to get some life back into it. Amaziing stuff this piss!!!!

Don't tell the wife I've been watering the radishes She said they're a little hotter than usual
It helps that the tomato plants get 5' or more tall usually so even the neighbors don't catch me watering them

 

[Paul Sutton]

Each block cavity will make a nice individual pot for various herbs, onions or garlic. Maybe even cucumbers or raspberries????

 

[lakeview]

This orchard was at the house I recently sold. Living "in town" now as a nod to the needs of future me.

 

[DogBunny]

Another disappointing yield from my Santa Rosa plum tree. This pic represents half of this year's harvest.
The fruit are a little smaller than ping pong ball size, which is normal, and are sweet, juicy and delicious.
It's interesting how quickly these ripen. The tree only leafed out about ten weeks ago. I won't be harvesting my tangerines, apples and pecans until October-November.

 

[nj1639]

Last year a voluntary wild Osage Plum was loaded, this year nary a one. Spring weather is a determining factor.

 

[DogBunny]

Last year a voluntary wild Osage Plum was loaded, this year nary a one. Spring weather is a determining factor.

Good point. According to the interweb, all plum varieties have hit or miss years. Pecan trees are well known for having heavy and light crops every other or every two or three years, and mine bear this out.

 

[Mailman]

View attachment 215442

Another disappointing yield from my Santa Rosa plum tree. This pic represents half of this year's harvest.
The fruit are a little smaller than ping pong ball size, which is normal, and are sweet, juicy and delicious.
It's interesting how quickly these ripen. The tree only leafed out about ten weeks ago. I won't be harvesting my tangerines, apples and pecans until October-November.

My last house, I had a Santa Rosa plum tree, it would put out so much fruit the branches would sag down, but they were all little, almost too little to eat. First the birds would go crazy eating fruit, then all those plums would start to drop. Beautiful tree when it bloomed, but oh so messy later on. Plums were tasty though.

 

[nj1639]

Good point. According to the interweb, all plum varieties have hit or miss years. Pecan trees are well known for having heavy and light crops every other or every two or three years, and mine bear this out.

Re Pecans. We're at or near the northern limit for the hardy, smaller varieties. I got a mess of them one year from down along the Ohio. I got some sprouted and have two trees now, been waiting years to have some of my own nuts. Every spring I'm looking for the flowers but nothing yet.......thinking its close to twenty years on now. One day.......

 

[DogBunny]

Re Pecans. We're at or near the northern limit for the hardy, smaller varieties. I got a mess of them one year from down along the Ohio. I got some sprouted and have two trees now, been waiting years to have some of my own nuts. Every spring I'm looking for the flowers but nothing yet.......thinking its close to twenty years on now. One day.......

I hate to tell you this, but it's likely that when you finally do get some, your pecans will be useless.
All commercial pecan varieties are grafted from superior wild specimens.
I have two pecan trees in my front yard. One is huge, probably about 100 years old. It is a native, or wild pecan tree, and the meat is impossible to extract from the shell. The meat and the shell is all interwoven together, and when you crack one open, you're left with a mixture of tiny shell and meat fragments and dust that are not worth the effort that it would take to try and separate them. When the tree is having an "on" year, people come by all the time and ask if they can collect the nuts. I say sure, but you're wasting your time. They collect a bunch and never come back. The squirrels do like them though.
My other tree is a much smaller paper-shell variety, specifically a Chocktaw, and is probably about 40 years old. It produces great, big, very easy to shell nuts. Unfortunately, most of the nuts fall prey to disease and insects. I'm doing good if I can salvage 5% of the crop. I'm pretty sure the commercial growers spray the heck out of their trees, even when they are dormant.

 

[xjwmx]

^Those pecan trees up at Emma Long were great and didn't take any care at all. Huge, easy to shell, productive. People would collect bushels every day to sell at a stand or someplace