For fun and profit I sell some plants every year. I was thinking about trying my hand at multi year larger trees. I don’t have a whole lot of space for something like this but I figure a small grid of 20~25 trees ought to be fun, watching my happy little forest grow in a small space.
Here trees grow very slowly so say a 3 year apple tree would be a branched 4 feet tall guy. Aiming for that size, how close together a planting can I get away with?
The plan is to take advantage of my horrendous river bed like soil. Roots don’t penetrate that mess so the idea is to use 5 gallon buckets, drill them well for drainage, and sink then in a grid in the nasty soil. I can build a lever system so when the time comes it can grip around the top of the bucket and jank them out of the soil. Failing that there is always a shovel around…
I don’t know, I have quite a few I have been kicking around for much longer. Plus most of the bucket would be underground. Push comes to shove it would force a replanting which while undesirable it would not kill the plant.
Heck come to think of it, if the plant releases from the bucket I could leave the original bucket in the ground and just put the plant in a new bucket…
yr in alaska, i got you confused with @steveb4 for a second. we’ll say 10 years!
probably not that important a detail, but buckets are usually hdpe. probably there are uv stabilized versions, but regular old ones can be had as part of the waste stream, so kind of a no brainer there.
interesting idea though. actually gets my gears turning because im trying to figure if and how i want to grow a couple of marginal species in the ground- maypops and figs. I was contemplating dug in containers, primarily to contain the roots to the degree possible. i realize they’ll probably break loose through any hole. interesting spin with the double container though. it would potentially allow for root pruning, plus bringing them in would be an option. i am contemplating an insulated cover- 55 gallon drum filled with borate treated cellulose for the figs and an insulated “lid” for the maypops.
it sounds like you have water table issues in this spot. how are seeing the bucket idea playing ojt in regards to soil moisture?
i dont know that alignment would matter. the inner bucket isnt going to sit down toght enough to the outer one to prevent flow of water. bjt if the water table is hogh, anythinf you put in ot will be sitting on a puddle, no?
I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear, I said modified pot on pot because I’m using a single “pot”. I have seen too many 5 gallon buckets stuck together just by them being stacked empty, I would not trust them not to mate for life.
My soil is rocks and gravel, tree roots don’t go into them. I just enlarged the space of an existing apple tree by digging out around the original planting hole, 5 years in the ground and the roots have not made any inroads into that crap. That’s what leads me to believe that I can do a single “pot” (five gallon bucket) and not worry that the roots would try to escape and cement the bucket in place.
I have no water issues, the rock-gravel soil drains extremely well. Mechanically it should be well suited for this. Heck I should be able to just dig the hole and plant knowing that the roots will stay in place, the buckets would just make the whole process easier to repeat over and over. Specially if I could just pull the plant, leave the bucket in place for the next one, and just put the plant in a fresh bucket for delivery.
All you need is wrap it in some cheap material you can replace after 2 years. Do not forget to cover lips of the tub from top too, they breaking up first.
First frost around the first week of October, second week if we are lucky? Last frost around mid of May? Here May showers bring June flowers.
There are plants that are well suited for our weather. There are apples that will take a 28f overnight freeze and just keep on trucking the next day. Haskaps with plenty of Russian genes will get their blooms covered in snow and that would not affect fruit set. The trick is to grow what’s hardy for the environment.