I’m a father of 3 young children without the time I desire in making a super well researched and thought out orchard plan and I figured you lovely folks might enjoy this sort of thing and not have to do hours of research to make a rough plan. I am a teacher trying to give myself and the family a decent “character building” and income producing side hustle of farming.
Currently here in zone 6b Kentucky south of Louisville I have 16 - 4ft wide, 150-175ish ft long rows spaced 20ft apart that have been tilled, fertilized according to a soil test, and cover cropped for the winter, but I don’t know exactly what I am going to plant in them in the spring. I don’t have much cash flow to get this thing going. I spent most of my start up capital on this spring putting in a separate area of 400ft of raspberries, 50 blueberry bushes (being grown in 15 gallon pots, I have killed many a blueberry bush in the past in this stubborn clay soil and am fine needing to replant every 5-10 years) and 250ft of strawberries in to sell at the farmers market starting next year. Also looking at applying for a USDA high tunnel grant to run some figs, tomatoes, or salad greens in.
Anyway the main point of this post are these 16 rows, I was thinking fruit trees starting most from seed and grafting known varieties after a year or two of growth. I love the idea of seed grown rootstock vs transplanted, due to a little influence of Stefan Sobkowiak’s work though I am not totally bought into he whole NAP trio thing so I am not trying that. I was going to lay down 4 ft wide landscape fabric on the rows, burn a hole at the appropriate spacing, probably a little denser than normal and thin later.
My thoughts on rows are
4-6 rows of apples
4-6 peach
2 euro pears
2 pawpaw ( for fun and perhaps propagating and getting a nursery license to sell some as well. Peaceful Heritage and Englands near me seem to do quiet well and the interest only seems to be growing in pawpaws)
2 asian pear
Also in the midst of these rows looking to do the permaculture thing as much as possible by growing more sun loving bush type fruits or spacing loving veggies while the trees are young and as the trees get bigger transition to more shade tolerant bushes. I’d like to do farmers market, but with the idea of transitioning to U-pick as the trees begin producing. The reason for having such a variety to keep U-pick customers entertained as Stefan says. Will be running sheep and broilers behind the sheep in the rows with poly wire electric to keep the plants safe and the grass mowed. June and July I am off for the summer and so can full time farm, harvest and sell so those varieties are more appealing, Though some August-October harvest wouldn’t be to overwhelming especially once the U-pick is rolling. Last caveat so far I am not certified organic, but am only using OMRI sprays and things and so would love things to be as organic as possible and would want disease resistant “easy” growing trees.
Anyway what do you think of my rough plan for the orchard, would you have more or less rows of the trees I have suggested (peaches look great on paper, but I fear not being able to organically grow anything decent)? What do you think of starting from seeds to start cheap, gain some capital back from my berries over the next couple years and graft later? Is pruning standard sized seedlings to a manageable size going to be unbearable or should I find the cash and just go with good semi dwarfing rootstock? If you are really feeling froggy what varieties would you suggest for the apples, pears, peaches, and asian pears and in row spacings?
This whole thing could not make a dollar and my finances would be fine, but if I could get it to pay for itself and eventually bring some good income in that would be amazing so profit is definitely my goal.
