My wife and I purchased our first home in Midland, NC. It happened to come with a nice orchard. We want to make sure we are doing the right things right!
Would someone be kind enough to point me in the right direction on who I could potentially speak with or hire to give me some advice for year one and two. Hoping for someone in the local area.
Some of the trees are tagged others are not. Looking to find out what the untagged trees are and when to harvest. What issues to look out for and any other info I can find out.
I did a quick audit today.
20 total apple trees
1 Pixie Crunch
1 Braeburn
2 Sundance
2 Fiji
1 Wine Sap
1 Gold Rush
2 Yellow Del
1 Wolf River
1 Prarie Spy
1 Macintosh
1 Courtland
1 Granny Smith
4 Unknown
15 Total Peach Trees
2 Contender
3 Elberta
10 Unknown
Sounds like you hit the fruit-jackpot! And you’ve come to the right place. I’m new to fruit growing and not much help to anybody really But the more experienced members here should be able to help you. Welcome and enjoy your trees!
Yep, jackpot. It sounds like the previous owners probably picked the fruit trees that they wanted and didn’t just grab whatever was on sale at the big box store, so they may know the varieties of the untagged fruit. I have an orchard with about 90 fruit trees, a dozen blueberries, some currants and grapes and we’re considering selling when I retire and it’s going to be VERY hard to walk away from the orchard, so I’d agree with bleedingdirt, they’ll likely be happy to help and give advice.
I wish that was possible. House was sold through an attorney and the former owners are unable to be reached. All I know is that the former owners built this home to retire. I would agree they put their soul into this place and we are lucky to have found it.
We have our work cut out for us but we are excited for the challenge.
Posting some pics of the orchard would probably be a plus for getting advice. I am a newbie at fruit trees so not much help here with personal advice but there are countless hours of very good reading here and I’m sure the experts will arrive shortly.
I would email that attorney to forward your email address to them. And mention you need to identify all the fruit tree varieties. I managed to get hold of the previous owners of my house that way. She came over and drew a map of all 17 varieties of roses she’d planted!
You could also go to your municipal/county office and might be able to track down their info from the old tax role, any previous building permits, records of purchase/sale, ect. But really the best would b trying to have the lawyer send along a personal letter from you to them with your phone number and e-mail. Good luck, sounds like you have a real nice setup there! I’m approaching 5 years post planting and things are JUST starting to get interesting. To walk right into an orchard like that would be a dream. (I’d probably top work some of the non-disease resistant apples but with the peaches you will probably have a spray program anyways so it probably does not make much of a difference.
For the peaches, I’d keep track of ripening time (when they start to become soft like a ripe peach should be) and free or cling-stone, white or yellow flesh.
Then you can use a chart like this one from Vaughn Nursery to get a better guess at the variety. http://vaughnnursery.com/peach/
I would bet you have a Redhaven or Reliance in there too.
But the more experienced members here should be able to help you. Welcome and enjoy your trees!