Welcome John!
Tony
Hi @John_T, I also live in middle Tn. There are a few other folks here who also live in Tn. Welcome to the forums.
Absolutely! 
the guy got his priorities straight! 
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Hello! I finally found this forum!! I have been looking for a long time!
About me: I am determined to turn my tiny 6000 sq. ft lot in the SF Bay Area into an edible landscaping paradise. I hope to use Backyard Orchard culture techniques to hedge row about 25-30 trees around my property. With our small lot and strange micro climate, I will definitely need lots of advice. And I will definitely need to learn how to graft as I know there will be a lot of trial and error.
Longer backstory:
When we finally bought our house in 2013 I was so excited as I have been dreaming about planting fruit trees and having a garden for soooo long in my dreary apartments. I did a ton of research on backyard orchards and lurked heavily on gardenweb. I made lots of notes about what I wanted to plant, but due to existing landscaping, existing concrete, renovations, and financial constraints, we had to put it off and put it off…
I remember seeing the post where most of the GW fruit & orchard members announced that they were leaving for another forum, but I didn’t think to bookmark it/ or save it. That post is gone now btw… houzz must have deleted it because I looked everywhere trying to find it.
Anyway… fast forward through 2 versions of house plans, tearing down most of our house, moving out for a year, rebuilding, etc… Then today, when researching morus nigra, this forum came up! I was so excited to see the familiar user names. Just in time too… as today I awoke to the jack hammering of the concrete that has been blocking my orchard dreams for so many years. Jack hammering has never sounded so good!
On the far side of my lot, we were able to get a few trees started. We have successfully planted a meyer lemon, a rocoto pepper tree, a lamb hass avocado, a royal rainier cherry, and a passion fruit vine (too successfully… it has gone 30 ft in every direction… passion fruit dripping from the roof!). We have unsuccessfully planted a zutano avocado twice (I have no idea why they died). We also have a mature hachiya persimmon that came with the house.
In the next week or so I have to pick out the remaining 15-20 fruit trees to plant next month. I seriously will need some help narrowing it down. I will definitely be posting some questions soon.
Sorry for the long introduction, but I am really excited to find this forum!
Thanks,
Robin
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Welcome Robin. You are in the right place now.
Tony
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Welcome Robin! I am also living in the bay area, more specifically Vallejo. IMHO this is one of the best areas in the world for fruit growing. The annual California Rare Fruit Growers scion exchanges are starting today so you may want to consider stopping by there to pick up some easy to propagate cuttings like pomegranates and grapes, etc.
Welcome! I think you will need a pollinator for your Royal Rainier Cherry.
I searched for awhile, too, before I found the refuge at last
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Welcome, Robin. I’m in Tracy, just east of the Bay Area. Here is the link to the schedule of CRFG scion exchanges: https://crfg.org/2019-scion-exchanges. Today is the one in San Jose. When selecting trees, it’s important to know your soil and climate (lowest winter temps, number of chill hours, etc.).
John,
Just make sure that the house doesn’t intrude onto the orchard. Remember the priorities.
WHY JUST DO IT … WHEN YOU CAN OVERDO IT?
Mike
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I figured I’d follow suit and introduce myself.
I found this forum the other day while hunting for rootstock, and more often than not, information popped up from here.
This seems like a very active community with plenty of very knowledgeable people, so I’d like to join in.
My name is Peter and am approaching 40, married and have managed to produce 4 fantastic girls. I currently live on 1/4 acre in the Sacramento valley, half of which is dedicated to fruit trees and chickens. The other half is a raised bed annual garden where things is cultivated year around thanks to the weather.
I grew up on the countryside in Sweden and we always had gardens, farm animals, and fruit trees. When I was old enough to move out and explore the world (was 16) I left all that behind and have lived in the city ever since. I moved to Sacramento 15 years ago exactly (13th of January) and once I bought my first house, which is my current residence, and had my first child 8 years ago, the urge to come back to such way of living grew very strong. So a spring 5 years ago, I started to transform my ornamental backyard (grass and beautiful none producing bushes, and other nice looking landscaping elements) to a place of production. Chickens and bees came naturally shortly after and half of the yard had it’s grass smothered with wood chips, free ranging birds, and fruit trees. The other half is an annual vegetable garden.
My children now have very little traditional play space left but they prefer strolling around in the garden anyway, and eating things as they see fit (carrots, tomatoes, and strawberries being their favorite things) and hang out with the chickens (my wife lovingly refers them to as “lawn candy”) or help me maintain the bee hives. Fruit trees was the last thing I planted in the yard transformation and the oldest ones are now on their third year.
But the urge for more food in the backyard has only grown stronger as my knowledge and yard expansion increased and am now moving to a 2 acre property in a much more rural area. So my next chapter is about to start. And with that, the fruit tree obsession has taken a serious hold, which has now led me to this forum.
I’m looking forward to share my future failures and successes and hear what you beautiful people on this platform are doodling with.
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Welcome MockY.
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Welcome Peter. There’s quite a few of us from California here. 
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Welcome to the forum Peter… what fruit trees do you have in your quarter acre property? And what are you contemplating for the two acre one?
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On the quarter I have the following trees (the rootstock tag has disappeared from most, Citation is the only known one for a few):
Candy Heart Pluerry
Flavor Grenade Pluot (died a few months ago due to chickens ate the bark clean all around the trunk. Very odd)
Burgundy Plum
Stella Cherry
Leah-Cot Aprium
Dapple Dandy Pluot
BraeStar Apple
Winter Banana Apple
Ginger Gold Apple
Artic Supreme White Peach
Mulberry
Then I have various citrus in barrels.
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In my experience this is normal behavior for chickens.
The cut was similar to someone took a knife and removed a section of the bark, not just pecked everywhere.
Yeah, you can’t have anything nice when it comes to chickens. They are beyond destructive 
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How do you preserve your veg garden from them?
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Sounds like rabbit?
Not here. The greatest threat to anything here, besides the raptors, are the cats…those darn diggers.
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