Welcome to the forum, you are in good company! Plenty of our members are scattered around New England. You may want to check out this thread No spray fruits
It has been active recently and will give you a good baseline.
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Similar story here. Bachelor and Masters in Mechanical Engineering. Grafted my first tree last year.
I just love it. Iāll hang up the power plant manager career before too long and focus on being a gentleman farmer.
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Hello All, first of all a bundle of thanks for creating this wonderful place for like minded people. I feel like I just got home and have been ferociously absorbing all I can from the forum. Thanks to all.
About me: I will call myself a hobby/Gentleman farmer. I have a busy day job but I love all things related to farming. About 5 years ago bought a piece of Kentucky and started planting fruit trees. Finally moved out of subdivision and have been living on the farm for the past 3 years.
Currently have about an acre of electric fenced area with over 100 fruit trees of all that goes in zone 6B/7A including Apples, Pear, Peaches, Plum, Apricot, Nectarines, Cherry, Persimmons, Jujube, Paw Paw, Mulberry etc. Figs deserve a separate paragraph 
Peach, PawPaw, Mulberry, jujube, Persimmons have fruited and hopefully others will fruit in the years to come.
Figs: I got tired of shuffling figs in pots to garage and basement in winters and decided to go all in with in ground figs and after devouring all the info from our fig forum decided to trellis the figs on low cordon Japanese style espalier protected with Low tunnels during winters and have a relatively good success with first great season in 2021.
Berries: Haskap, Raspberries, Blackberries, Currants.
Nuts: We have Black walnut and hickory nuts as native trees. Plan for lots of nut planting this year including chestnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pecans etc.
Vegetables: in High Tunnel and raised beds were the first to start.
Livestock: We have chickens, goats, a guard dog, cat and two colonies of bees.
Requesting prayers and pointers from you all. Iām counting my blessings and wishing all a blessed, productive and fruitful year.
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Welcome to the forum it looks like you have a great farm! As questions pop up just post them and one of us will try and answer them for you. Looking forward to seeing your future posts especially those about honeybees and high tunnels!
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That could be Bourbon Countyā¦but at least in the Bluegrass. Kentucky is
reprsented pretty good on here. Lovely young orchard!
Beautiful figs- I am considering that setup myself, so will watch if you post more about it.
Beautiful, what is your favorite fig so far?
You have a great looking farm, and a headstart on many of the members here. Welcome! Cannot wait to see your fruits in the spring-summer!
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Yes, Bourbon is the neighboring county. Good to see fellow kentucky folks. Thanks for the compliment. Stay safe during this weather 
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Favorite fig is the one at peak ripeness picked from plant. With that said dark figs are my favorite. Dark Portuguese and Makedonia Dark are on top. In green varieties Kadota and Brooklyn white are awsome,
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Great looking orchard and farm AnjeerFarmer! Welcome to our communityā¦
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Hi, my name is Mark and I live in the Portland, OR area.
I joined a couple of weeks ago but I just noticed the āIntroduce myselfā topic.
We moved here in 2013 and this is our third coast (TX, CT, OR).
First thing I did here is put in a couple of raised beds to grow tomatoes and planted beefsteaks 
- at the end of the season I had frozen green tomatoes 
- this is definitely not TX. I have had better luck with cherry tomatoes but still not great. Surveying what we have that gets lots of light, I noticed our Flowering Plum 
- this Spring I want to graft in some fruit branches 
and found this forum.
Quick funny story from just after getting married 
:
I have always remembered my family having a garden so when we moved into our first house in TX, I set to making garden beds 
- tilling and preparing the soil, weeding, etc. and my wife started grumbling
Me: 
But I thought you liked gardening
Wife: I do
Me: 
What is your definition of āgardeningā?
Wife: 
Planting flowers and watching them grow
Me: 
That is a very distorted view of gardening.
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I should probably say āhelloā!
Hi! Iām Andrew and Iām based in the central/eastern part of Iowa (5a/5b-ish). Iām still relatively new to growing fruits so Iāve been listening and reading significantly more than posting.
We have a house in new development in a suburban area but with a fair amount of ground given the circumstance (.3 acre). We were planting shade trees, and my wife spent months convincing me to get a Cherry tree. So, we finally did. She sold me on fresh jams, jellies, pies, etc. So, 4 years ago we bought one from a local nursery, planted it, and killed it within 2 weeks. Thought it was a bad spot in the yard. Next year, we bought another, killed it within 3 weeks (or so we thought). It tried to come back in the fall, but it soon died for good this time. This was unusual because weāve planted plenty of shade trees and never had problems.
Ended up doing a significant amount of reading online and learned how cherry trees donāt particularly like water. Changed how and where we planted it, and year 3, we got one to survive - which was especially impressive to us considering right after we planted it the temperatures went into the mid 90ās (unusual for the area at that time), it got ravaged by Japanese beetles, and it got assaulted by ~120mph straight-line winds.
It came back and produced cherries in 2021. From there, I went āall-inā to growing fruit. Everything is still very young, but we have 3 apples, 4 euro pears, 2 sour cherry, 2 sweet cherry (not expecting much), 2 raspberry, 5 blueberry, and 1 blackberry. Looking forward to planting honeyberries, currants, an apricot, asian pear, 2 more apples, a peach, a multi-graft plum, and trying out some grafting on the current apple and pear trees in 2022.
This forum is an outstanding resource and a special and a huge thanks to all who created and are maintaining it!
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Youāve gotten your feet wet it looks likeā¦
Hopefully you found some good spots in the yard to plantā¦but if the soil or drainage is too badā¦raised beds solve the problem. (And raised beds donāt have to be enclosed in edging, stones, or anythingā¦ a mound of good dirt is also a raised bed.)
Good luck in '22.
Putting the cherry in a raised bed was the trick that finally worked (and putting it in the notoriously driest section of the yard). All of the trees are in some sort of raised bed about 4-5" above the ground. Rain can be unpredictable in this part of Iowa, so this will (hopefully) help me control water levels a bit better, and as a plus, it makes other yard maintenance easier!
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Hi Mark, Donāt despair about your tomatoes. I live just west of you on the coast. Although not a place known for tomato growing, a bit of care selecting a good spot outdoors or use of a shelter with good sun will produce good crops. Being in the valley as you are provides ample tomato growing conditions. I start from seed indoors in late February, move into small greenhouse in April. Unheated except I use heat pads. Transplant 3 times. Replant deep into large containers. Some I plant outside depending on what variety. Good luck and keep us posted.
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Howdy, Carl here, in the mountains of North Carolina. Often looking at less common things, but always looking to be able to just harvest things from my yard. About three yearsago I bought property and so āmy yardā is actually now my yard. Itās an awkward shaped acre in zone 6B with assorted microclimes. Last year was mostly about putting in fruiting trees and bushes. This year will be more about grafting and trying out odd veggies. Former owners loved ornamentals, but they had puppy syndrome and didnāt thing about adult sizes of what they planted, nor invasiveness of some choices, so next year will probably see a lot of extraction. Iāve already removed some black walnut saplings the squirrel overlords obviously had no plan for when they placed them, and Iām removing a stunted Maple and at least downsizing an ancient pear that might be salvageable. Iām thinking about bark grafting assorted hardier fruit types on branch stumps that have gotten dangerous as they are.
Most of my fun so far has been assorted medlar, pawpaw, and kiwi, some of which may even give me first fruits this summer. Grafting onto black walnut was so far a fail, but everything else has been more cooperative so far.
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Welcome to the forum Carl! I see you have pawpaw on your planting list I just wanted to mention they can be grown along with mullberries and a few others amongst your black walnuts.
Also, those walnuts can be grafted to better varieties so youāll maybe want to consider keeping some!
Hi everyone,
Iāve been lurking on this forum for a few years and finally decided to make an account. This forum has a wealth of knowledge and I really appreciate its existence. Thanks to Scott and all of the contributors.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time helping my grandpa in his backyard and I loved it. He had cherries, pears, apples, grapes, mulberries and raspberries. I have my own backyard now and even though heās gone, he still remains as my inspiration.
Iām Zone 5b in Ontario and am currently growing:
Haskap - Beauty/Beast/Blizzard/Aurora/Indigo Gem
Raspberry - Nova/Autumn Britten/Unknown
Cherry - Romeo/Juliet/Cupid/Carmine Jewel
Pear - Douglas/Concorde
Fig - Chicago Hardy/Jean Talon/Colasanti Dark
Strawberry - Seascape
Apple - Unknown but itās old and unfortunately being attacked by sapsuckers.
Iām planting a few more trees this Spring and then I think Iām about out of space. Chestnut Crabapple, Dewdrop Pear, Sunrise Pear, IE Mulberry and Carman Mulberry. I tried finding Harrow Sweet after reading all sorts of favorable reviews on this forum however I couldnāt find a provider in Canada. Iām also going to be starting some Yellow Wonder Strawberries in a few days along with some pollinator friendly perennials.
Iām looking forward to learning and connecting with this community.
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