Thank you so much, @alan ! Those links are perfect. I read through the low-impact spray schedule and will move on to the other articles as well. Super helpful.
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As somebody else in VA, you very likely to have cedar apple rust, oriental fruit moth, and plum curculio problems.
I have yet to see an apple make it to ripening, but I’m in Richmond. My best performance here has been blueberries, figs, and (strangely) plums but I haven’t seen brown rot yet either. If you are up in the mountains you may have better apple performance.
It’s too hot for me to grow currants and gooseberries, but you might be just cool enough to get away with it. The summer humidity and temps drive various leaf diseases that defoliate them by September.
@TheGrog I’m really hoping the mountain environment will do some magic, though if I’m honest with myself, I doubt the temperature difference is significant. But the fact that we’re on a slope and get pretty strong sun, maybe that’ll help… otherwise it feels pretty overwhelming, the heat, humidity, and pest pressure. My currants got sick with something last year. I couldn’t even imagine that gooseberries might not make it! I just planted mine last spring. I wonder about the walnut now, and the hazelnuts. Time will tell. Thanks for your reply!
Also in Virginia but in the Shenandoah Valley 6b/7a. Yes to the issues above, but I have had good success with Surround if applied early enough. Bagging might also be a good option for you.
For me an early copper spray, followed by dormant oil is important to get off to a good start. I don’t find that scab or CAR is so detrimental to trees that they don’t recover. A PC scar on an apple that makes it to harvest just tells me that the PC didn’t win.
This past year, just when I thought I was headed down home stretch, birds came in and pecked at least half of the apples on certain trees. The more open the tree, the more the apple seemed to stand out, and the more pecks I got. Then I decked out the tree with Christmas tinsel, motion whirligigs and pie tins.
Sometimes I feel like Elmer Fudd hunting wabbit.
Welcome!
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Hello! I think we are likely nearby each other! (I’m just west of Staunton and Harrisonburg if you know where those places are)
I also have a slopey place, deer, a bear, and cedar-apple rust!
I am pretty new to all of this as well, so if you look you will see a bunch of the questions I ask might be relevant to you - except that I have both old and young trees.
@benthegirl We’re closer to Front Royal, but I bet we do have similar conditions. Having a mix of young and old trees sounds like a dream! How tall and old are your old trees? We got our place three years ago and spent most of the time clearing the wild growth, unfortunately no fruit trees there to speak of. Even though our mountain is actually called Apple Mountain!
I’ll definitely check out your posts and will be on the lookout for your questions in the future. Oh! I’m curious what you do against the bears. Do they come for the fruit? An acquaintance whose land borders Skyline Drive had a bear come for her young apple tree’s harvest and completely break the tree in the process :-/
@Rosdonald Tinsel sounds like a fun idea! Though I’m sure it was no fun to have to try to beat the birds to your fruit. I’m trying to brace myself and mentally preparing to give up some fruit to the wildlife. But I need to slow down and actually get to a harvest, first!
When I went to a NAFEX meeting (north american fruit explorers) about 20 years ago a tour included a trip to a farm up in the hills above Charlottesville where the owner grew no-spray Golden Delicious apples for organic cider he sold. The apples were good enough to eat and old strain yellow d. often produces fruit here without spray.
The point is, it is bound to be easier to grow apples in the hills of VA than in the more humid and warmer areas closer to the ocean. Also that variety makes a big difference in the difficulty of realizing harvests.
Count it as wishful thinking. I’m on a mountain side about a half hour north of you. I try to go as spray free as I can, but it’s just not possible for stone fruit and to a certain degree apples. That’s why I advised pears. They love it here and have very few problems. On your currents and gooseberries I would not put much thought to them. Mine look pretty drunk by the end of the season every year. Each year they come back just fine and produce a crop. That’s normal.
I’ve got some in-ground blacks that do ok, but only 2 left out of probably a dozen varieties and they still suffer in the fall.
The gooseberries & colored currants are in pots and get afternoon shade, and yet don’t do too much more than cling to life. I get a handful of currant strands and maybe a dozen or two gooseberries across several plants.
There are a lot of apple orchards at higher elevations in the west half of the state, but the question is always ‘how heavy do they spray?’ Apples stay on the tree so long that they accumulate a lot of damage when you only have a few trees too, and that’s not really a problem that a full orchard has either.
Front Royal is not so far away and I have seen apple mountain on the map!! @Rosdonald is close to me but more costal and has totally been my inspiration - so definitely pay attention to what she says!
Also, get your soil tested. Most of VA is all acidic, but in my area (ridge and valley which extends north of here which can include you) it tends to be basic with high alkalinity. That can cause a number of problems including boron issues, iron chlorosis… ugh.
Here is one I wrote to someone else just getting started: benthegirl’s response to a new orchard dweller.
As far as the spraying goes, I’m on a mountain and sadly, it’s not better. Oddly, my apples are the saddest things. Everyone said it’d be the stone fruit. However, I have old varieties of apples which aren’t doing any favors. I didn’t spray enough this year or last and I would be embarrassed to send you any pictures. My apple trees looked like a giant rust/scab spot. My peaches fared a bit better by some miracle that I don’t expect to be repeated and I plan to spray them on a schedule this year.
I do have a lot of pear trees, which other than the neglect, I think are doing well. 
They have a bit of a mite problem but I hope to have that solved. They had a bit of a blossom blast/cold problem… I suppose you’ll read all about it when I post this year! Anyhow, they seem the most hardy.
It is!!! My house is a dream. When I got my fixer-upper I knew it had fruit trees in a block, but only a few were really visible. I always wanted fruit trees, but had never tried before. It’s been a huge learning curve. I found I really enjoy caring for them and learning about them. I also started cleaning up the property and have found many, many more fruit trees.
I have planted peach (because I love peaches and peach trees aren’t as productive when they’re older- so I figured why not.) and fig (because there weren’t any here and they are bleh from the store- I love figs and I wanted to see if some hardy varieties would work. ) I also planted raspberry and blackberry.
My biggest problems are: neglected older trees, deer, racoon, and squirrel. Probably in that order. Look up @alan’s squirrel baffles for inspiration against the animals. If you can realistically fence out these things than that’s helpful.
I got 3 new peach trees and after looking at my older trees and reading @alan’s posts I promptly ignored the traditional advice to start the scaffolds at 1.5-3 feet. All of mine are going to start higher. Squirrels and racoons jump. I watched a deer stand on it’s hind legs and eat a shoot off an apple tree while my 50lb dog barked and ran at it (the deer laugh at my dog).
Well, the bears haven’t tried to get at my small trees. They’d have a pretty sad time with a tiny harvest on my tiny new trees. Bears have a pretty big range and only swing by my house once in a while. All my neighbors and I are very careful about keeping trash locked up and such- so there isn’t much incentive for them to hang around.
I’d try to find out who your conservation officers are (there is only one in my area) and see if they have any advice and/or can let you know if you need to worry. I feel pretty convinced that unless the bear was desperate (in my area) it wouldn’t bother trying to get past a decent fence. My trash enclosure and compost bin aren’t exactly high security and the bear has never bothered. It did like my mulberry tree.
I came from the rural west where bears were very present and very big. In one town I lived in you could see them every single evening hanging around dumpsters. Everyone just ignored them. When I lived in Wyoming, I saw them regularly from a distance (and would have been terrified if they’d shown any interest in coming closer). So I think the way that bears get treated has a lot to do with location.
When I showed my bear pics from my security cam to the conservation officer here, he was just happy that the bear didn’t have mange - which I guess is a problem around here. None of my neighbors seemed at all concerned and just mentioned not to leave trash out (and most of them raise livestock or poultry) so I wasn’t worried either.
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@TheGrog thanks for the reply about your plants! I guess only time (and care on my part) will tell if the gooseberries and currants will live up to my childhood memories… at least I can always make tea with the black currant leaves, so that’s already a win! I’m also planning to plant seaberries… will share progress reports (if any) here.
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@benthegirl thank you for such a thorough and thoughtful response! You’re totally right about having the soil tested, I’ve been thinking about it. Though a part of me thinks, I’ll just have to make do with whatever the soil is. Not sure I’m up to the task of amending it. Maybe I’ll work my way up to it as this whole endeavor starts to feel a little less overwhelming. Part of the problem is that we don’t live near the planned orchard — we live in the DMV area (Maryland) and drive a little over an hour to the small cottage on the mountain. It’s a dream, but unfortunately I can’t be there to monitor and spend as much time with the plantings as I wish I could.
I read your post where you kept clearing and finding new old fruit trees. What a dream!
If I may ask — how do you like east coast to west? I’m originally from a different country, Kazakhstan, and grew up near very high mountains. We had apple orchards there and everything seemed so much easier to grow than here… could be rosy memories of childhood of course but I do think the soil and climate there were more favorable. But I’ve lived in this area (Maryland) so long, it’s definitely where my roots are now. Never thought about moving until I started reading about the climate and pest pressure here and suddenly though — maybe west coast is better 
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If that’s the case, you clearly won’t be up to the task of managing a small orchard in the humid region. All adjusting the pH has to mean is spreading either lime or pelletized sulfur in the area where the fruit trees are to grow BEFORE you do any digging after contacting your county cooperative extension and arranging a LEGITIMATE pH test (there is at least one large company out there offering tests for the purpose of selling their expensive fertilizers). pH tests are not expensive or difficult to administer. Collecting samples properly takes about 5 minutes and you will be clearly instructed on how to do it.
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Unfortunately, due to the high alkalinity of my area (calciferous soil) sulfur does not help too much. The extension office did say I should add elemental sulfur 6months-1year before planting new stuff (which I did). I also spread elemental sulfur pellets near established plantings. But CaCO3 is an excellent buffer and it doesn’t fix the issue.
For me, the high pH has meant making sure that nutrients which are hard for plants to get at high pH are available in some form. I also use Ammonium Sulfate fertilizer instead of something with a high pH. In addition, I avoid growing anything that really cares A LOT about pH like blueberries. Certainly most plants would be happier with a pH <7 but many seem okay at 7.5
Here is a graphic about pH and availability of nutrients:
So if your pH is high, like mine, you might want to spray borax.
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7.5 is fine for apples as long as there isn’t some other issue tying up any important nutrient. Yes, if my soil was 7.5 I wouldn’t try to grow blueberries in it- I would grow them in a naturally acidic mix- because they are relatively small plants this isn’t too hard and to my palate, blueberries are worth it. Even when you also have to build a cage to keep the birds off of them. I eat some blueberries out of my freezer every morning with cereal or waffles. I also have frozen nectarines and E. plums in my freezer with adequate abundance to get me through winter and spring.
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You probably have a high number of blueberry shrubs. I’ve got two rabbiteyes growing in whisky barrels. That is nowhere near enough to be freezing any. Just how many blueberries shrubs do you have? Varieties? A curious mind wishes to know. 
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Northern highbush are very productive up here in NY once they are established and thriving. My blueberry chicken wire cage really only has room for six plants but I’ve got 8 squeezed in. I fill maybe 14 gallon sized zip freezer bags to bursting while they are bearing. I don’t eat that many fresh because I have a lot of stone fruit ripening at about the same time- maybe a quart a week so I freeze most of the harvest. I also freeze a lot of nectarine and E. plum slices so after most harvest seasons I only buy citrus except a few pints of berries when I really crave fresh fruit.
I’m not really bragging- my obsession makes me a slave to my bushes and trees. When I’m not tending other people/s fruit trees I’m almost always tending my own. Sometimes it feels like I’m chained to a hamster wheel, especially when I start to feel the pressure of spring. I probably need a serious intervention… I can’t stop myself.
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