Greetings! I’m new here and interested in growing fruit (and nuts) but have no clue what I’m doing. A friend sent me here so I’m hoping to get pointed in the right direction. My situation is such that I do have time, but very little budget, and no land (currently).
Because I have lots of experience with gardening, my plan was to buy seeds of everything I wanted (because seeds are cheap), plant them in pots, and in 2-3 years when we hopefully get some land - bingo! I’d have lots of inexpensive trees ready to plant!
But as everyone here (except me) already knew, that’s apparently not how trees work! Reading here it seems like everything is propagated using rootstock and scions. And that the rootstock must be compatible with not only the scion but also the type of soil/land. I do already know (in general) about compatibility with zones (I’m 7a), rain (~40"/yr), humidity (high), etc.
Am I now going in the right direction? That is, the inexpensive way to start an orchard is to graft somewhat generic rootstock to very specific scions?
Not everything has to be propagated via cloning or grafting. That is however the only way to get the specific variety you want, say a Wickson apple. You would need to obtain the Wickson scion from someone growing that variety and then graft to an apple rootstock of which there are many.
If however you wanted to create more genetic diversity and roll the dice so to speak you can certainly plant seeds. Some trees, such as Pawpaws, even though there are selected varieties there are many people who argue they are not that much better than seed grown.
I too am on a budget and have grafted, cloned, or grown a lot of my stuff from seeds. It is certainly cheaper and grafting is not difficult. If you research the tree species you want and determine the appropriate time to graft you will probably have decent success your first time out. You can get rootstock from many places depending on what your looking for. If you want to graft pawpaws or persimmons I would look at a local state nursery as they sell seedlings quite cheap normally. As for rootstocks for apple or pear I have only purchased from Fedco and per unit they are a little higher but they sell in bundles of 10 vs 100 at other nurseries. I’m sure there are other places and options but they are who I have dealt with thus far.
In the end, start small. From there you can propagate the varieties you have to either expand your orchard or sell/trade for things you want.
where are you close by Pawpaws can be grown in the woods and are native
Persimmons as well so are wild grapes
Seeds can be free as well
I grew pawpaw 10 years ago (edit more than 10) I researched it ( as well as pears sassafrass etc.)
but things happen people when you leave may not water them they may die
you could be hurt (not me) they may be better self growing in the woods.
there could be a Neigh bor cutting down your tree’s in this world you never know (round up)
do both the woods and at home
pawpaws fruit in shade get good seeds
find a clearing Grow some persimmon
(guerilla growing it is called I may 1st is suppose to be a holiday I read of it. being so
people growing things in Vacant lots in Europe …
Ground cherries can be grown as a seasonal crop (chinese laterns etc,. in tomato family)
Tiny budget? Don’t know what you are doing? Eventually you’ll have the place and space to spread your orchard? Easy peasy.
You already established your parameters so it is a matter of working within those constrains. For starters There are tons to learn, now you can work on doing the learning. Heck look for a community garden near you, get a small plot, and start growing veggies. It is not fruit but it has a lot of the same skills you will need later.
Grow bushes in containers. It can be a tad harder than soil but it will let you learn and collect plant specimens you can propagate later.
Speaking of which learn to propagate, and just give it away to friends and family. You will be learning and flexing another valuable skill that will eventually come handy. Many bushes can be ridiculously easy to propagate.
Borrow some space; if you know somebody with a sunny corner on their yard ask them if they would like for you to grow a plant for them there. Once it is established eventually you can air layer it or get cuttings from it to reproduce it.
And get to know people. Once you befriend fellow orchardists you will be amazed at how many of us are happy to share plant material.
Seedling trees can later be grafted to the variety of your choosing, so plant seeds in pots or raised beds and grow them.
Black walnuts and the like often turn out fine from seeds, but apples or pears, not so much.
(Although if you plant enough, a few do turn out to make nice fruit…just not identical to the tree the seeds came from.)
Seedlings typically make full sized trees…so if dwarfing is something you desire…buying rootstocks may be necessary.
Or, if you have the money, buying 100 of something usually makes the price for each one much cheaper!
If you have a tiny budget and no space, you have a problem.
Pots, potting soil etc all can add up.
First thing you should focus on is learning skills and gaining knowledge.
If it where me, and a orchard was the long term plan. I would see if i could rent a small plot on a communal vegetable garden.
Make friends with people there, they can teach you tons of stuff, which will save you a lot of money later.
Start learning the different propagation techniques.
(sowing, rooting cuttings / layering and grafting)
Being able to propagate something yourself will save you tons of money.
You could just practice grafting in the forest/park. Experiment with different species (mostly ornamental) and different times/techniques.
Also look for fruit collectors nearby. And try and build a friendship with them. Not only is that a fun hobby to share. They usually appreciate company and help with pruning. And that way you can learn hands on to prune and might even take away some pruning’s you can root or graft for free plants.
For me, the best investment would be tools.
Grafting knife (maybe whetstone or some super fine sand paper)
rootstocks, getting a few rootstocks (that are off patent) and propagating them. By layering or making stoolbeds or even hardwood cuttings (MM111 for example) will yield you practically free orchard tree’s when you graft them.
My experience is that some one always lacks rootstocks. So if you have/make friends with people with a large fruit collection. likely they’d be happy to trade scions of varieties you want for a few rootstocks. although quite often they also happily give away scions without wanting a trade)
The cheapest way to go is the slow way, grow root stocks if they are needed by seed, yet by seed is not always good enough, things can be disease or cold sensitive when grown by seed, sometimes even more pest sensitive by seed, and you can not find seeds for everything. Some things do not need root stock, like fig trees and pomegranates. Even when grafting not all scion/cuttings can be found at a cheap price, depends on what you are looking for and the time of the year.
You can buy root stock in bulk for a couple of bucks a stick. Scion wood can be harvested from friends, neighbors, and even members of this forum. A lot cheaper than buying bare root trees and way cheaper than buying potted trees. Like alanmericieca said, it is the slow way to do it. But if you are on a budget thats what I’d do.
You need to provide us with more information about your situation and what your goals are or most likely we will provide you with bad advice that will waste years of your time (you can’t buy more time) and end up costing you a fair amount of money. What types of fruit trees do you want to plant apples, peaches, cherries etc.? What state are you located in and what hardiness zone?
Also we have a tendency to tell people what has worked in the past for us rather what will work well for you if we don’t have much information about you. If I have a small city backyard in Chicago and you live in rural Alaska I need to know your location in order to give good advice.
You say you have no land what do you mean by this? Are you renting an apartment, renting a house or do you own a very small city backyard. You can plant fruit trees in very small spaces with the right rootstock. Apple trees can be planted 3 feet apart for example and you can also grow some mature fruit trees in pots which can work if you’re renting.
If you have little money available to spend that money wisely you are going to need to do a fair amount of research. Don’t go out and buy something because it’s cheap and readily available. It may seem cheap but if it ends up you have to spray it a lot (sprays cost money) and prune it aggressively (pruning gear costs money) it won’t be that cheap in the long run. You need to search the forum and else where to see what will work best for you. We can certainly answer questions and help you find what will work best in your situation.
In most cases you will want to mail order fruit trees in the beginning. We can point you to suppliers that provide quality trees at low cost. Most fruit trees are grafted rather than grown from seed and this insures the fruit tastes good and has other useful characteristics like good storage life, disease resistance, good yields, etc. A grafted tree consists of a scion like Honeycrisp for example that is connected to a roostock via a graft.
The rootstock provides the roots and controls the size of the tree. You can grow rootstocks from seed but you will get large trees and if you have little space that isn’t going to work well.
Grafting trees yourself can be cheaper in some cases but in many cases it’s not. I can buy a quality tree for $20 or less. You would graft trees in small numbers at least initially. For apples to graft a tree on a dwarfing rootstock you need to buy a rootstock and buy scionwood and have some tools and supplies to actually get the job done. It’s going to cost $ 8 min to graft that tree and in reality probably cost quite a bit more. Some grafts will fail to take and you will have to grow that tree out for 1-2 years to get it to the size of a purchased tree. Voles, rabbits and deer and other issues can destroy that freshly grafted tree quickly. So I would strongly recommend buying trees. If you want to buy trees and in addition graft some trees I would say go for it.
Welcome!
Since you don’t have any land yet, I would stay away from any potted trees that you plan to plant in the ground until you have a space. Here’s why:
It may end up being longer than you think, and you’ll have to care for, pot up, and schlep those plants around. Moving a few houseplants is a pain; moving a bunch of large potted trees can be a big logistical hurdle.
Continuing on 1, the larger they get, the harder they will be to establish in their new homes.
And furthermore, a lot of trees don’t take to pots as well as others do. Pretty much any tree CAN be grown in a pot, but some are much easier than others.
As others have noted, potting mix ain’t cheap.
You don’t know what your land will look like. Is it sunny, shady? Clay or sand? In a frost pocket, or baking on a rocky south slope? How much of it is there? All of these will have an impact on what will do well and how much you can plant.
Considering the above, you have a lot of potential to waste money rather than save it.
Now, all that being said, a potted fig or two might be well worth your while. Also, you could try practicing grafting with sticks gleaned from the woods. The biggest thing you can do now to save money is to do your homework to reduce the mistakes you make (you’ll still make some, that’s OK). Also, start putting money aside for your future orchard. $5 or $10 a month for 2-3 years will get you a pretty substantial down payment on an orchard.
A note on grafting: if you want to save money, grafting won’t necessarily get you there (at least on a small scale). I did a whole bunch last year, grafting duplicates to account for failures. I got lucky and had a lot of takes, and was able to sell a few to offset my costs. Without that, my price to start was only a little less than buying the trees would have been. But it was more fun and I had more options.
As for seedlings, they can be a worthy endeavor, but that’s best left to those who are rich in land and curiosity (you need both), because there will be more flops than successes.
Another type of homework you can do now is trying as many types of fruits and berries as you can.
Figure out what you actually like!
Farmers market trips and farm gate sales visits will let you try different things.
Even talking to people here and on local fb groups may lead to being able to sample different things.
It’s only worth the time, effort and money if you’ll eat it so you can start figuring out what is worth it, to you!
I established my orchard (with a few exceptions) using rootstock/scion. The costs per tree were roughly $3 per rootstock, $1 per scion, $3 per hardware cloth vol cage, $6 for irrigation system, and $6 for an electric fence. (Note: all numbers are strictly from memory. Actual values may be off, but they are close.) I did source some trees from Cummings Nursery, always ordering the smallest trees early in their ordering cycle. The cost there, with shipping, was below $20 per tree. I ordered a handful of special varietals from St Lawrence Nurseries as well, but those were more costly (and larger).
I have roughly 300 trees, so paying $20 a pop was out of the question for me, especially since this project has always been a long term project. If it were a short term project, I absolutely would have found a way to get the cash to buy larger trees to plant.
The “full trees” I purchased have come into bearing much sooner than anything I grafted. The $15 difference between grafting and straight up planting is getting fruit several years sooner as well as getting more fruit per year until the trees are the same size. If I were working commercially, that would be essential. If I only had a handful of trees in a backyard, it would totally be worth it.
With that, if you are doing just a handful of trees, find a way to get the extra cash and buy the trees you want when you have the land. Think of all the hours you’ll spend grafting, watering, etc as well as the material costs (soil/pots)… compare that to getting a side-hustle part time job anywhere…. If the job pays $10 per hour, think of that as “half a tree” per hour. You’ll make up the difference REALLY quickly and can probably put aside enough $ to pay someone to dig your holes for you once you buy trees! Hahaha! If you just want something in pots to grow and give you something delicious, I’d go with strawberries or tomatoes or whatever!
But for me. buying rootstocks a piece is roughly 2 euro a piece. (1 euro if i buy 100)
a oky grafting knife and some fine grit wet/dry sandpaper can be had for around 15-25 euro.
Scions can be had for free. or around 3-5 euro. 1 scion is usualy enough to do 2-3 W&T or 10+ chip buds.
grafted tree’s here are usualy around 15 euro or higher. so the breakpoint price wise is around 3 tree’s. Less than that and buying might be cheaper. Above that grafting yourself seems cheaper.
Especially if you start growing your own rootstock. (im kicking myself i did not start with this earlier) (just buy 1-3 of each kind you think you might ever need, and make stool beds)
I agree it’s situational, and can be much cheaper, but it’s good to consider that it might not be. For me, it was not really cheaper since I counted on a low success rate (especially for peaches, apricots, and persimmons). My cost per successful tree was actually pretty low, because I did better than I thought I would. But my cost per tree that I actually needed was only slightly less than buying. If you buy rootstocks in large quanities, they’re $1-2 here, but if you need less than 100 (a few vendors have bundles of 25), it’s more like $3-5 depending on the variety and vendor. Also, shipping will add at least $20 to your total, which is a lot when spread over just a few roots. And that’s if you can get everything you need from one vendor. I needed to order from 3 different sources to get what I needed. And the OP is talking pots, so a quality potting medium is another big expense in the quanitites needed.
For an experienced grafter, grafting in quantity, it is definitely cheaper. But someone just learning, working on whatever trees they can fit in a few square feet in pots, it could very well be more expensive.
I grow red haven peaches from seed. They taste great. start producing in 3rd year and produce bushels by year 5. Sour cherries, Montmorency, produces great cherries by year 4 but it will take 7 years to produce in quantity for pie making. citrus trees grow close to true from seed except Meyer lemon. Key limes and Meiwa kumquat will produce in about 3 years.
You’re getting a lot of good advice here. In terms of what will work for you, a lot depends on your specific goals and situation. And I would say that one of the best investments you can make at this point is in thinking through what you really want to do and what you will need to make that happen.
Going along with that, I’d say that the most valuable thing you can acquire at this point is knowledge and skill. (OK, I guess that’s two things.)
For example, you could definitely start growing out some seedlings, and if things go well you do could have some trees to plant out when you have some dirt to work with in two or three years. On the other hand, you could also just buy some rootstock when you get the land and plant that, and it would probably work as well if not better and cost the same if not less (when you factor in the cost of caring for the seedlings). At this point, the real value of growing out the seedlings would be what you learn in the process, and hopefully the enjoyment you get out of it.
And I’d say that the same general point would hold true for a lot of things at this stage in the game. For example, grafting. With a utility knife and a certain amount of discretion, you can start to practice your grafting skills on whatever you can find handy. (Ornamental crab apples, for example.) You don’t need to be too attached to the results at this point, just put in some practice and it will pay off down the road.
Good luck, and remember that for most of us, a big part of the value in doing this is enjoying the process.
I forgot to say, I sell a bunch of plants every year to support my planting habits, somewhere around $500 gross. I think it barely covers my expenses.
I also trade a lot of material; for haskaps I have about six varieties growing but know people with a few dozen more; getting a new variety is a matter of getting them started from cuttings.
Thank you all for the overwhelming quantity of information! I’ve got a lot of reading to do and some decisions to make. I’ll likely be in touch with some followup questions. This is definitely an active forum - I’m excited to be here.
Again, many many thanks.
We’re glad to see you here! Another thing that occurred to me is to shop around and get a lay of the land before you buy. See what vendors tend to carry what you’re looking for and what the price points are. Take a look at the Nurseries List in the Reference section, most of which are at least pretty good. Some of them are members on this forum. Also look for Garden Watchdog reviews of nurseries. And stay away from TyTy!
Whenever you do buy trees, if you get already grafted, a small bare root or potted tree will establish better and be healthier than an extra jumbo super size, on average. The small trees will often quickly catch up with their bigger, pricier kin.
Another thing I forgot to say; taking the slow approach may be a bit frustrating but it saves you from a rather common mistake; trying to jump all in before developing the skills to keep you from making rookie mistakes. Many folks start by planting 30 big trees the first year just to watch half die by the next spring and then having to sort out what happens and the expense of replacing what went wrong. Killing plants is better done one at a time not wholesale
