Planning Brand New Mini-Orchard in Zone 7

General Fruit Growing
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I’m new to this so don’t have much to add except for don’t underestimate disease pressure. Pears like Anjou, Bartlett etc are red flag.

I’m in a very different climate, zone 4/5 and semi-arid, but still have had issues with fireblight on pears in my first two years. Because of my climate I underestimated the fire blight issue, but have already had strikes on 3 trees, Flemish Beauty, Anjou, and Tawara Asian. I’m not yet sure yet if the trees will outgrow it in the future.

Potomac, Magness, etc are a little harder to source for me but I wish I put the effort in now.

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Thank you for the detailed response. Is Black Pearl difficult due to it being an early season cherry? I tried to structure all my varieties to get an early season, mid season, and late season variety. I chose Black Pearl over Black Tartarian just because that is what ACN has in stock.

Pruning I was planning on central leader for apples, cherries and pears, and an open center for peaches, nectarines, and apricots. For what I have now, I tend to over prune because I just love the process if that makes sense. My goal was to keep everything below 12’, or the height I can harvest while riding around my old tractor (1947 Farmall A).

I like the idea of planting other things around the trees, but already have a 45’x70’ garden that has blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and vegetables. This area for the fruit trees will also be open to my chickens to free range.

Animal protection is huge. I have an electrified poultry netting system around the pasture and where these trees are going, which has deterred everything mentioned by raccoons and possums. They seem fine just eating the shock.

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So much amazing information. Thank you!

I just assumed I should be putting things in the order they bloom, increasing my probability of pollination. Is that not necessarily a thing if you are planting multiple rows of each fruit type?

I have only had the M7/EMLA 7 trees for two months (got ~15 6-8’ potted trees for $30 each from a nursery that was closing), and I totally see the suckering. That being said, Wouldn’t MM111/EMLA111 be so vigorous that pruning twice a year would be an issue to keep the tree under 10-12’?

I actually really like Arkansas Black and Red/Golden Delicious, but the wife of course despises them. A lot of what I listed in my second row are dual purpose (fresh eating and cider) or family favorites (Honeycrisp and Nittany). I think I should substitute the Honeycrisp and thank you for that advice!

Apricots are similar here. I had two trees at an old house and one season I got an ample amount, and the next year a late frost resulted in getting none. My logic is I have to order 25 trees to be considered a commercial order from ACN (much cheaper too), so why not try 3 apricots.

The advice on peaches, nectarines, and pears is super helpful. Thank you! I do LOVE a good Bartlett though…

My selections for cherries abided by the pollination charts. What makes you say Bing and Rainer is a bad idea?

I was thinking spinosad for pests, or at least that is what I thought I should do after a little bit of reading and youtube.

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I live somewhat south of you in Richmond.

In my experience, cherries are going to be impossible. I had horrible splitting, rotting, japanese beetle, and shothole problems in the fall. Both trees would end up nearly defoilated from shothole so you absolutely need a good spray and nothing I tried really worked. Even Montmerency wasn’t really happy. I had 8-10 varieties multi-grafted from Raintree and they all had the same problems.

Apples are possible, but you’ll need to spray for various things. They sit on the tree so long they tend to accumulate damage. Cedar apple rust and fire blight are sure to show up, along with various other issues.

Apricots will have frost blooming problems unless yours are pretty late blooming varieties so I hope you have a good site. My Tomcot also produced bad fruit that liked to rot from the inside out once they ripened. Once ripe the fruit generally developed a gap down the stem to the pit which let bacteria or yeast in. I have no idea if you will face this problem as I’ve never heard anybody else have it. Plum circ is also a problem. The tree itself is pretty bulletproof.

Peaches I have some kind of spring disease. I’m still not sure if it is peach leaf curl or not. The sprays I’ve tried either do nothing, or damage leaves on their own. Even lime sulfur in the fall/winter didn’t help.

Note the somewhat consistent issue of disease problems that are hard to handle with hobbyist spray controls. Organic simply isn’t going to be possible IMO, and if you want to control CAR & plum circ you will need weekly sprays for a while in the spring. Spinosad plus Surround works well on circ for me. The cherries may well require weekly sprays for summer and fall from my experience. Every other month? No way.

My suggestion is, strangely, plums. My plum tree is my best producer, nearly trouble free, and only really need plum circulio control. I’m considering getting more. I believe all 3 varieties I have are Japanese types. Supposedly brown rot will show up eventually, but it hasn’t yet and I’ve had it 6-7 years at this point. You do have to keep an eye out for black knot.

Also consider some mulberries and figs. A well established fig can survive winter temps at my location, but the last 2 winters have been pretty mild. Wrapping it in some kind of insulation isn’t too hard. If you are willing to have some big pots and do some winter sheltering, morus nigra fruit is really, really good. Both are basically immune to disease.

You may be far enough north that you can see some success with colored raspberries, colored currants, and gooseberries.

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I was a bit unclear there. I meant to write that it is a tough variety as in it is resistant to cracking and canker which tends to be a problem with all the rain we get in the east coast. If that one doesn’t last, I am not sure what would.

Central leader pruning should work, but you will have to renew and cut back scaffolds on some of the larger trees to keep them under 12 ft. At least you won’t need a trellis, but you may want to stake for a year or two so the grafts don’t snap.

If you have your chickens run, you may plant some forage that you can chop and drop to raise the organic matter and increase drainage. deep-rooted perennials may also help break up compacted soil. also, chickens might get into the trees. You could also just leave it with the woodchips, nothing really wrong with a cleared area to appreciate the trees and you already have a garden.

I think some of the varieties you have will probably get wrecked, check out [Scott's Apple Experiences Through 2022]
for some heads up on apple varieties.

I just think of the golden delicious apple a person down the street from me has. never thinned, sprayed pruned. still makes decent apples each season that I pick up from the sidewalk because they don’t eat them lol. Not sure if your red delicious is a special strain or sometihng, like Hawkeye, but they can also be good apples depending on taste. just not good keepers. It has become a meme to hate them.

If you like cider, you might want to get more cider apples too. Some russets or red fleshed maybe. wicksons and crabs may do well for that too.

Good luck with your orcharding, I will be in the same boat you are in a few years from now I imagine.

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All my M7 trees lean, to the point of falling over. I am not going to put any more M7’s in my orchard.
I almost did what you are doing about planting a large amount of trees at one time. What I found out was the varieties I THOUGHT I originally wanted are not what I ended up with. Picking out a few varieties each year helped me pick out what ended up being probably better varieties. Even then I had to take out some varieties I picked out. Lack of fruit production, lack tree growth, etc. Even with reading and researching different sources sometimes you come up with things that do not work in your zone or even microclimate areas.
Good luck with your new mini orchard.

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Probably not a huge deal. I approach this from somewhat a commercial perspective. We now have about 700 peach trees. It’s really a pain when cultivars are out of order. Sometimes out of order trees get neglected during picking, and actually get skipped being picked (seriously, it’s happened).

We only prune apple trees once a year, regardless of rootstock. 111 isn’t super vigorous at all. Pretty calm trees really.

Makes sense. Three apricots certainly won’t break you. You sound like me. I tend to like some first hand experience. I reason this is because I was born in the “Show Me” state (MO) :wink:

This has also worked against me, because I’ve experienced plenty of pain learning first hand experience of my failures. Three trees of failures (if they fail) aren’t a big deal, so there’s not a huge downside.

The synthetic version is more effective and lasts longer. Spintoram (Delegate) is what I use. Unless you are specifically against synthetics, you will get more mileage out of Delegate.

The Grog (the next post after yours) has been raising fruit in your area for quite some time. No one person (including myself) has perfect knowledge of fruit growing challenges you will face in the future. But experienced growers near you may give you a unique window of their past difficulties. My advice is generally give their advice heavy consideration, even as you stretch out and experiment on your own.

As a complete aside, and light hearted comment, I must add “The Grog” sounds like a super scary sci-fi movie of the 1960s. On the level of “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”.

Worthless comment, I know. But that’s just how my brain works. :grin:

Troy, care to give us the low down on your stage name?

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I have the same problems with Plum trees here splitting and dying in pieces.

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Agreed. I like the ease of M111. Just hate they take so long to fruit. Still liking P.2 but I have to use it only on medium to high vigor scions. Sadly working with old heritage types I have ended up with some clearly low vigor types on dwarfing. Plan on cutting off the scions and regrafting them on another rootstock later. But some of my best growing trees are on P.2. So I will have to take notes on which types do not have much vigor,

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I’ve had mixed results on length of time it takes apples to fruit on MM111. Some take a bit longer, but some are pretty quick. I have some EverCrisp on 111 which started fruiting 3rd year. This summer was their 3rd growing season, and they produced maybe half a dozen apples per tree on average.

For most varieties, it seems to take about 4 years to start to get some production worth anything.

I have a Fuji on standard roots. It took quite a while to get into production. But this summer it produced more than it ever has. It’s a pedestrian height tree. Here are some apples off it this summer. The first three columns of crates are from the Fuji, but it was less than half the apples eventually picked off the one tree. Each crate holds about half a bushel. Other than pruning, the tree is super easy to care for. No fertilizer. No herbicide sprays required underneath. Just spray, pick, and prune.

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That is an issue with dwarfing rootstocks. They can runt out easily, if not pushed hard with fertilizer and well irrigated. I have some pretty old apples on M7 that haven’t even reached their potential and filled in their space.

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One of those dumb college nicknames. I’m 6’8" and ate a lot, so one time I brought 2 trays of food over to where my friend group was sitting somebody said ‘Grog eat rock, scissors. Save paper for later.’ I don’t even know if there was previous context, but it stuck and I started using it online. I don’t really remember how ‘The’ got added. Maybe so it would be available over more accounts/websites/etc.

Sometime later I wondered if it was an insult that just whooshed over my autistic head but I decided I didn’t much care.

I also had trouble with some dwarfing rootstocks for apples. I’ve got a tiny row of Gold Rush, Ashmead’s, and I think Pixie Crunch and Baker’s Delight on one of the more dwarfing rootstocks. Between the CAR, the fireblight, the red clay soil, and that damn oak tree shading they topped out at maybe 5 feet and pretty underdeveloped.

Been thinking of pulling them and replacing with a single Ashmead’s on something more vigorous, but I hate to pull trees. It took me 4-5 years to finally yank the cherries and that pluot that literally never set a single fruit.

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I agree with you I HATE to pull trees. I end up giving them more time to bear fruit than what I really should have. Then I kick myself for not pulling them out years before I do. If they are aren’t producing fruit in a reasonable amount of tine then they aren’t doing their job. I have taken out 8 fruit trees out last year and I am going to take at least 2 more out this spring. Some that I pulled this year have been in the ground since 2014 and 2015. That’s more than enough time to produce some fruit.

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Exactly why I’m regrafting slow growing P.2 trees. Funny I notice the P.2 rootstock send out growth like crazy. Telling me the scion is is not up to snuff. Definitely incompatibility of some type.

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HaHa,

Funny stuff. I had one of those college nicknames. My nickname was used so often, some people didn’t even know my real name.

I have a good friend who had the unfortunate nickname of Hag. He got used to it. You don’t get to choose your nickname.

I recall a guy college thought he could choose his nickname. We all were sitting at a a full lunch table, and one of the guys asked everyone to start calling him Prefley as a nickname. We all looked at one another, and one other guy said, “Elvis Prefley”, and we all busted out laughing.

From then on, the guy who wanted to be called Prefley was called Elvis by everyone.

Everyone has different ideas. But the common view planting trees is the same as my philosophy . Namely, the best time to plant (or pull out and replant) is years ago.

I typically don’t waste more time with fruit trees I don’t want. For me, time is too short.

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Hi,
I am excited for you and wish you well in this journey. I live in the Stafford/Fredericksburg area in VA. From my experience I pulled my peach trees and nect trees due to the amount of spraying needed to get decent fruit. Do not underestimate the amount of spraying that will be needed. Be careful about adding trees that may bring fireblight to your orchard. I tried barlett pears and had to pull them due to fireblight. As others have suggested I would not plant that pear. Also, as others have suggested I am moving more to lower maintenance fruits like persimmons, mulberries and paw paws. Figs should grow well. I have some jujubes that are growing well but they are not as productive yet as I would like. The sweet cherry may end up being a little frustrating to you but I believe the sour cherries will grow well. A big problem for me is the late-night fruit thieves’ squirrels, coons and deer. This is not to discourage you just what I have experienced.

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I feel this. 6’6" and I ate a lot too. BigMike was the standard when I was young. In college on the rowing team I had a propensity for slouching in the boat and I also had long hair, so they called me Yeti. I didn’t mind it so much when the girls team shouted “Yeti” from across the quad to get my attention while I would walk in a state of introversion, living inside my head. funny how even silly nicknames can make us feel special.

@comish83 I’m the complete opposite from your method. I spent years researching before I picked out my first fruit tree/bush to try and grow. I often get stuck in analysis paralysis. The only things I ever got from my local nursery, I was wildly disappointed in (tissue culture figs, way overpriced). Everything I grow is specialized for no-spray production so I don’t have any insight into the fruits you are planning to grow. have fun, and best of luck to you with the new orchard.

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Jujubes do reasonably well for me too with very little care. Good ones taste like caramel apples to me. Some of the fruit seems to go from unripe to overly soft and/or kind of shrunken very quickly though.

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I grew beautiful Peach trees here in South Georgia and they croaked with the "Peach Tree Short Life " that has become prevalent here. 4th leaf and about to fruit. County Agent looked at them and said it was fairly common. My plastic ground cover was no match for ring nematodes. Knotty bald roots when dug up. No fine roots at all.

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I noticed you mentioned earlier you may be interested in plums if you do not have a Shiro you should consider getting one. It is very productive, Do you grow muscadines? They grow well for me here.

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Thank you for the feedback and I would love to hear what type of apples you have grown in your area and have been successful with no spray? Have you ever tried Nittany?

Based on all the feedback, I am definitely changing my ACN order and approach. I may do an update post. Things like dropping honey crisp, comice, Anjou, Bartlett for fire blight resistant varieties like Magness, Potomac, and Kiefer.

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