Hi Everyone! I wanted to create a thread like some others detailing my journey getting started with a home orchard and my progress.
In 2020 I planted an orange tree and a few muscadine grapes. Having good success there I planted some apples in 2024 and really grew from there. I’m going to break this down into a few posts going over what I think are the critical issues and then my progress.
Here is my home orchard layout. Right now I think I have 30 different fruit trees. I have them in 5 different areas of our property.
First along our driveway I have 7 different Muscadine grapes planted. Some are a few years old and some are new. I’ve only recently learned about pruning them well (a spur every 6 inches with 2-4 nodes). One of them I cut back hard to regrow properly. This area is pretty shady, a tall oak tree grows over from the neighbor’s property (off camera to the left) so they get direct noon sun or late afternoon sun. I don’t think they fruit as much as a result, but they seem to put out a fair number of grapes. My biggest issues have been birds/wildlife taking them prior to maturity. Around Thanksgiving I prune them back and use the trellis to hang Christmas lights! This was a major selling point for my wife to agree to planting here.
Next in the front yard I have the Sugarbelle Orange tree that started my fruit journey. It was planted right when we found out we would be having a daughter! Sadly it is infected with HLB and on the decline. Vigor is great, but the fruit quality has been in decline and last year I got tons of small sour oranges. It has one year to improve or be replaced (very sad). Next I have 3 cherry trees that I planted. After speaking with someone local I changed the cultivars I went with to be sure they are more low-chill cherries that will fruit in my climate as reported by others. Finally I have a SpiceZee Nectaplum. Trees here are in the front yard and I need them to look presentable. They are grown in amongst the landscaping.
Next is our side yard area. This is hidden by our house, a fence on two sides, and a hedge on the fourth. It’s more of a utility area (generator and propane tank are not currently in use but too expensive to replace/remove) so aesthetics aren’t as important. There used to be a very large Ironwood tree here (where the Mulberry is) that fell down and knocked out the generator. The Mulberry grew out of the compost pile that I started over the stump and I’ve left it so far. Long term I think I’m either going to remove or prune back even more severely. I originally grew them for the leaves (when blanched they are a treat for dwarf shrimp). In the back are 3 Bananas. The Pineapple is the smallest and took a lot of frost damage this winter. The Dwarf Cavendish is in the middle for size as well as location, and the Raja Puri has grown the fastest. All were damaged by frost this year but came back. The Raja Puri looked the best while the Pineapple I thought had died.
The Jackson Grapefruit is also one of my older trees. It is infected with HLB and I’m giving it one year to improve. Last year about 8 grapefruit set but all fell off by November. This year it had a great flowering and has a lot of tiny fruit. It doesn’t look quite as vigorous as the Sugarbelle but is supposedly one of the more HLB tolerant varieties. In the front are a Flordaprince Peach and Sun Home Nectarine. I chose these varieties mainly for their ripening time. I had been informed that their taste is more going to come from their being fertilized than the specific cultivar. Finally you can see the Spice Zee Necatplum in the front yard for reference. There’s also a lot of potted plants (Celeste Fig, Barbados Cherry, flowers, etc.
In our backyard along the left side I put in 5 Pluots and 3 Apples. The Apple trees were the original though to put in after citrus. There had been a continuation of our hedge that I expanded and put them down in. Then I tore out some of the hedge to add the Pluots. I chose these for ripening times. It took me a while to get the 5 particular pluots. I’m hopeful that these apple cultivars get their chill requirement here. It is a pretty windy spot right off the water so they do get a breeze.
Lastly on the right side of the backyard I again tore out some hedges to put in a Panachee Tiger Fig and 2 paw paws. The neighbor has the hedge on their side of the fence too and the hedge on our side died back so I replaced it. The paw paws can be a bit bigger in this location.
Pruning - in progress
Fertilizing - in progress
Spraying - in progress
Pest Protection - in progress
Whats your ballpark for chill hours? I was looking at getting nectarines and peaches, but you got plouts, nectaplums and even cherries and I didn’t think any of those were low chill. Judging by how you are on the water and still 9b, you are probably quite a bit north from me though.
I hope you have success so I can one day replicate it!
Based on UF Chill Hours I’m between 550-650 chill hours. I’m in Jacksonville, so yes probably a few hours to the north.
I had spoken with and ordered from Lisa with Green Pointe Growers. She was very helpful and has a good bit of information about cherries here. She helped me work through chill hours and what would be successful in my area and I ordered a lot of my trees from her after our conversations.
No success yet, but none have been in the ground for a year yet. Most of the pluots flowered after planting out of season, so I have hope that this year they get their schedule right and flower at the right time next year. The peach/nectarine/nectaplum all came this year with small fruitlets which I’ve been able to keep going. I wasn’t really expecting anything this year so that’s a bonus.
We did have a good bit of chill this winter. There was frost on rooftops a few days and I for the first time had my citrus get damaged. I used to have 5 citrus trees but the smallest 3 died back to at or below the graft this winter so I’m replacing them. I figure a HLB infected rootstock with about no growth is not worth trying to save.
How close have you planted the rows of trees? It’s helpful to see as I’m trying to decide if I plant close like that and prune really small or slightly wider with duo and trio plantings pruned small.
I’ve decided to try and keep my trees smaller to be easier to maintain and have more. I used the Sugarbelle as an example. I think it’s not really all that big, but it was kind of a pain to get fruit from the top of it.
For the Muscadine Grapes I think I’ve given them about 8’ each on a two tier trellis. For the Cherries I spaced them out 5’ from each other in a line. The paw paws are 6’ apart, as are the apples. For my pluots I tried to squeeze in an extra tree so they are 4’ apart.
For most I’m trying to grow the open vase structure, but a lot of the plants I bought were more trained central leader. I tried to cut them down pretty significantly, but didn’t want to get too low and risk killing the tree. In hindsight cutting them down pretty far didn’t seem to be all that bad and I would have actually preferred to purchase smaller trees to get started with and train the way I prefer.
So far I’ve hung flash tape and garlic up in my trees and covered fruit with Organza bags. On top of that for the peach and nectarine I’ve built a PVC cage with bird netting. So far my fruit isn’t ripe, but I’ve had no losses.
I purchased a trail cam and I’ve seen both a possum and raccoon snooping around one night. They left the trap alone, even though it was baited and not set. The raccoon was pretty big.
Here is one of the first blooms I’ve noticed on a Barbados Cherry. They are supposed to fruit pretty regularly and I was highly encouraged to try one by my local extension. I’m curious to see how much protection it needs and what it tastes like.
Here is one of my peaches which I believe might be ready in about two weeks or so. There are only 5 and I think these are most at risk for the raccoon/possum.
Here are my nectarines. I think there’s about 30 of them. They are still smaller than the peach and I think ripen about 2 weeks later.
Here are the grapefruits. I think it looks pretty good and I’m hopeful. If it doesn’t produce this year I’m going to remove it due to HLB.
This is my first fig! I’m pretty excited. I see a few other buds that I think might also turn into figs on this tree.
My grapevines look to have a good number of grapes on them this year. I think relatively speaking they are pretty light producers compared to a vineyard, but in this location they probably only get an hour or so of direct sunlight daily and make the best of the space.
This is a spice-zee nectaplum which has about 4 fruits on it. I have not yet netted it.
Finally here are my oranges, my oldest fruit tree and a heavy producer. It has HLB and crops the last 2 years haven’t been fully mature so I’m hoping I can help it produce well this year. I’m going to be very sad when it’s time to replace this tree.
I haven’t had to protect mine even with some overnight lows in the high 20s/low 30s. Mine are about waist high and have not fruited regularly. Had a few flowers, but very sparse and with very long gaps in between. Only starting my second year with it though. From the couple fruits I have had, they are pretty good.
I didn’t get the Barbados Cherry until March, after any real cold weather was past. It is potted and did wilt on me about a week ago. I’ve made sure to keep it well watered since. I’ve heard that good water helps them to fruit. They’ll probably love it in the summertime. May is usually very dry here but the summer is wet.
I’m thinking mine is probably a little similar as at least so far the flowers seem sparse. I counted 5 on the whole tree with a quick look.
So far I had felt pretty lucky. My plants have been left alone by wildlife. The squirrels either are content to chase fallen seeds from the birdfeeder or are repelled by the bird scare tape and garlic. I’ve seen a racoon visit a few times and poke around (mostly I think stealing bait from the trap which isn’t often set) and rarely a possum.
Monday night that looks to have changed. Starting at about 9:30 until 10, back at 11 and 2:30 we had a racoon all over. He had only poked about before but this time he wanted in the cage. There’s videos of him trying to climb the netting and even climbing along the edge of the pvc pipe.
It’s only 1/2" so you can see between the two pictures it bows pretty bad. I have 1" PVC I just haven’t had time to put up yet. Eventually he pushes hard enough that he climbs the nectarine tree on the outside of the net and gets to a fruit he eats through the organza bag and bird netting. Neither were punctured, but the fruit was mostly gone.
I didn’t have a lot of time Tuesday evening so all I did was was put out some more garlic in the organza bags. It seems successful as last night there were no visitors. Today I was able to go try and put up the 1" PVC cage material. I really struggle with this as 10’ PVC is just unwieldy. My first attempt was a fail, so this time I bought some straight PVC connectors and cut the legs at 4’ and 6’ segments. My idea was to make a cage starting with the top square, then adding two legs 4’ high, the next two 6’ high, and then going back to the 4’ legs and attaching the 6’ section to boost up to 10’. That was a fail. As I have a mostly successful cage built with 1/2" PVC all I did was build a second cage with the 1" PVC inside it to reinforce it. I also used a few extra 6’ sections to bow it out around the nectarine so it isn’t too close.
While working on the net I saw this guy in the tree! He disappeared pretty quickly.
Today I took in my first fruit! It’s a Flordaprince peach. I think the reason for the sudden wildlife interest is that the peaches and nectarines are nearly ripe. As I was working on the cage surrounding them I could smell the fruit over the garlic and soap at times. I think that’s probably a big reason why the wildlife is suddenly interested.
It’s not very big, about the size of a kiwi. But I only planted the tree about 2 months ago so fruit on it is a bonus. I had thinned down to just on the tree but maybe they are small peaches or it’s due to tree size. My wife brought home some other peaches from a farmer’s market today and those were the same size.
It was pretty sweet, definitely cling stone and a little hard to separate. It smelled ripe and was a bit soft. I think it might benefit from a little more time time on tree perhaps, but it does say they ripen in April just a little further south of me. Also we’ve had a big lack of rain recently, but this tree is getting water from irrigation.
A few days ago our neighbor’s son dropped off a lot of blueberries! He owns a blueberry farm in Georgia and we’ve chatted a few times. He came over and delivered some to his mom and a few for us too. Very delicious!
So far I’ve caught two possums. The Racoon visits about 50% of the time at night. He’s only been able to get one nectarine by eating it through the net one time. I’ve been letting the possums go as I don’t think they’re a nuisance at this time, but I’d be very happy to catch the racoon. He is big, a frequent visitor, and has really been after the fruit.
I’ve harvested a few more peaches and nectarines. The peaches have been good, and the nectarines great! They were just planted this year, so I wasn’t expecting fruit. Perhaps someone can help with some issues I noted.
The fruit is pretty small. Additionally I think it cracked when close to ripe.
You can see the peaches are small, but the nectarines are very small. They still tasted great. I had to cut out a lot of bad parts though. It didn’t seem to be any kind of insect damage, just split fruit. Is the small size and splitting due to being planted and still bearing this year? There wasn’t much rain at all the whole year until about a week ago.
if you want to check back year on year and see what you posted about, like the dates? put the date in the text of your post. it’ll just say “April 2025” on the post date later, so if you’re trying to be keeping track actually put the date in your post somewhere (this has helped me a couple times in my “garden updates” thread)
I love that you can grow the more tropical stuff there. I’ll follow this thread I love people’s updates like this and the Irish orchard thread
