Hey everyone, my name is Derek. We’re located in Southeast Idaho (5b). I grew up in an agricultural setting but had limited experience with fruit trees. My wife and I always talked about planting a few when we bought a house with some land. Instead of approaching it like normal human beings, we bought a place with 180 or so apple trees of various varieties, and scattered peach, plum, apricot, pear, hazlenut, cherry, etc. This was April of last year and we managed to survive the first year without killing any of the trees. We actually had a great crop and ended up selling several thousand pounds of apples and around 500 gallons of raw cider. My now 5 year old daughter was in heaven all summer which makes it worth it for that reason alone. We tried to mitigate the Dunning Kruger Effect by consistently reminding ourselves that we were in way over our heads but everything seemed to go fairly well last year. This is a hobby farm that my wife takes care of during the week and I help with on weekends and we’re having a lot of fun with it. I look forward to reading through the many topics that have already been posted. I have a lot to learn in terms of grafting and such.
