We have been working for more than a year for developing a fruit-tree orchard in Sacramento County, California. This post is for keeping records/logs of all the events that are happening in our orchard journey.
We will be mostly following BYOC…All these trees will be planted in hedge rows on the border of the property.
Two hedge rows, spacing between rows: 5 feet, spacing between trees on row: 6 feet, diamond shape row plan.
Trees will be planted on raised berms.
Soil Type: San Joaquin Silt Loam Series soil (203/204) - Hardpan 28-54 inches
Total trees planned: 180
Timeline:
March 2021 - backhoe soil test
April 2021 - trees ordered from Dave Wilson
July - October 2021 - deep ripping, compost application, soil preparation, berm/mound creation
February 6, 2022 - eighteen varieties of trees planted (total 171)
Feb 14, 2022 - dormant spray (copper fungicide, horticultural oil)
@inspireranch Hello. I just came across your thread because I was looking for more information on BYOC planting. This will be my first year planting fruit trees, so I am quite excited (and nervous) about planting my trees relatively close. How are your trees doing?
I just saw your thread. I am also in Sacramento county, Fair Oaks, CA to be exact. Where do you lived specifically If you don’t mind me asking. I planted about 60 fruit trees in our small property 0.3 acres, it is mostly 4 in 1 fruit trees. Maybe we can meet sometimes.
@pitayadude they are doing fantastic…our goal was to create a hedge row on one side of the property…so this style of planting is working well so far. Most of the trees are looking good. Lost a couple of them, but most of them survived and thriving…here is a picture from one end, persimmons and pomegranates …
@John_P our orchard is in unincorporated portion of Sacramento county, Wilton to be exact. How are your trees doing? Sure, we can meet and discuss some time.
Oh nice I almost bought a 5 acre property there back in 2020 by haggie road but got outbid. I am 30-40 mins away. I will take the sunrise blvd-grant line route.
Have you done any grafting? Maybe we can exchange some scions.
I know about Maggie road. I did not get an opportunity to start grafting on these young trees. We can definitely exchange scions. Most of the trees that we planted are not off patent yet though!
Are planning on starting a small business? Number of trees is too big for a family. Also, why are you getting 9-10 trees of a few varieties rather than trying much more varieties? What was your basis for variety selection?
We do this with mulberry and firewood. No tractor gets right up against the fence so a hedge makes sense. Fruit and firewood is a great bonus and there is a wind break.
@Ahmad we have an almond orchard on the property…commercially, while ordering these trees along with the almond trees, we had to order in bunches, each bunch of 10…per tree cost was way less…also right now, the goal is to create the hedge on the north side of the property…without that many trees, we would not have enough trees to create the hedge…fruit production wise, we have not decided yet, after family consumption what to do with excess?..a small u-pick business or donation, let’s see
Basis of variety selection - (1) successive ripening and (2) cross polination. With our current variety selection, we can get fruits from Mid May to January. We plan to plant some citrus and other trees to cover the remaining months.
