Keeping my goal in mind to grow fruit first and all the fun things that go with it second I look for most trees to be in fruit production within 5 years. Is that your goal? Many people enjoy grafting , pruning, mowing , fertilizing so much (as do I) that we forget our goal which is producing fruit. I try not to take trees in production out of production or to even reduce production to do things like graft new varieties. No sooner a tree really starts to produce someone notices it’s not pretty shaped or the fruit is not perfect. People sometimes make massive pruning attempts, or grafting to reshape the tree or change variety. My advice is if it’s in production unless you have way to much fruit be careful and do minimal grafting and pruning or fertilizing that might bring undesirable results. Is your orchard over 5 -7 years old and not producing all you want it to? Making the assumption we live 70 years as an example if it takes 7 years to produce fruit that is 10% of our overall time on this earth. I want to enjoy fruit as much of that remaining time as possible!
Well in 5 years my trees should be fruiting somewhat regularly, the fact that I’ll have around 80 makes me wonder what in the sam hill am I gonna do with all that fruit?
I’m in the same boat as applebacon. I’ve got approximately 85 trees on about 1/3 of an acre. I could easily double that number on an additional 1/3 care that’s suitable for planting - I’d dedicate it to hard cider apple varieties - but face a some obstacles, chiefly an impatient, results-oriented wife who’d prefer my current orchard consist of 80 fewer trees, the expense of adding another 400-500’ of deer fencing to protect the new orchard, the uncertainties of actual fruit production in this hostile (late frosts are fairly common) tree fruit producing area, the ability to actually sell a crop for at least enough to pay for my hobby and the specter/expectation of lengthy travel beginning with her retirement in three years time. As it is, I’ll need to find somebody(ies) willing to monitor and do work in the orchard during our mutually envisioned month-long, apartment/house-renting vacations in small towns and large cities across the US and abroad. I won’t be able to restrict those trips to winter months. First world problems, I know. Unless I can work out a wife-approved plan for that at least breaks even and doesn’t screw up the retirement part of marriage, I’ll have to restrict myself to my current orchard.
On that note, I’ve got trees ranging from 16 years old, call them the original five my wife wishes I’d have stopped with, to the vast bulk of trees that were mostly grafted eight or nine years ago, planted out the following year, and five years ago, planted out two years later, with a trickle of trees landing in the orchard in the past three seasons and room for 5-10 more between this year and next before I max out my current planting area. My orchard hasn’t produced much thus far due to many early mistakes on my part, marauding, tree-smashing deer entering the picture in 2010 before I fenced them out three years later and the high desert’s less than hospitable spring climate. The past two years have seen better production as my cultural practices have improved, the bulk of my trees have reached bearing age and the spring weather has been a bit more forgiving. In fact, barring mid-late May hard frosts below 26-27 degrees (happens every few years) I now expect my at least a few of my latest blooming apples to produce annually.
At some point when I’m a familiar enough face on this forum, I’ll stop front-loading my replies with explanations, caveats and outright excuses. Anyway, I can answer the original question. In five years, when almost all of my trees will be at bearing age, I expect to see decent crops of late-blooming apples and my quince almost every year, most of my apples, pears, sour cherries and Euro plums two out of every three years, peaches every other year and, based on my experiences up to now, Asian plums/pluots, apricots and sweet cherries every five-six years to never. When the big harvests come, outside of large batches of preserves, canned fruit and frozen fruit, I’ll make hard cider, share with family, friends and neighbors and, if they’ll accept my fruit, donate to local food cabinet or other mission that feeds folks who struggle to feed themselves. I’ve had acquaintances from other areas tell me they worry about liability issues when donating fresh produce/fruit from their gardens. I’d be interested in the experiences of others on this forum in that arena.
This probably isn’t the thread to throw out pics of my orchard, but I’ve never done it before and finally have a few that give the interested reader some idea of my conditions. I need to take new photos at a time of day where I don’t get all of the shadowing, but this is the best I have right now. Terracing my orchard with long stacked rock walls is my next project. It’ll take years, I fear.
This shot is from 30’ up atop my house. It’s difficult to make much out, but note the frost pockety nature of my property. It’s lovely, but not particularly orchard friendly.
And what the heck, my favorite picture of my favorite cat.
What would the internet be without cats!?
That looks like Socks the Cat. HighandDry - are you really Bill Clinton?
If I were Bill, I’d have a lot more property in a friendlier spot for an orchard (but still in Reno - love it here!) and hire a few workers to do the dirty work while I supervise from a shaded chaise lounge with a cooler full of good beer and hard cider by my side.
Well, not really. I like digging holes.
Some of my trees (though I live in New England, did not fruit for the first time until five years or longer. What interesting terrain. Do you have to worry about erosion? I know nada about Nevada!
Erosion is a slow process out here. We average not quite 8" of precipitation annually in Reno, though the gauge the National Weather Service uses is at the airport four miles east of me. I probably get an inch or two more at my place in the foothills. If we had more months like this January (more than 6" of precip so far - record levels) I’m sure I’d worry about erosion more. I do get some, which is why, in addition to saving my ankles, knees and hips in future decades, I’m embarking on a terracing project for the entire orchard later this winter. Moving and stacking all that rock will take all the worry about my joint health many years from now and compress all the pain and degenerative changes into about three years. 
I am a bit fearful as to what my orchard will be in 5 years. I am loosing one child who is going off to college this fall. Her sibling will leave for college in 3 years.
With no children left at home to help with the domestic chores (dishes, cooking, lawn mowing, leaf raking ect) I will not have the time I once had to devote to my
23 tree orchard in the near future.
The other issue is what to do with all the fruit when the kids are gone? I am always tempted to plant some more peaches and definitely want to try growing apricots but
hesitant to plant if I cannot continue caring for what I already started. Sadly I may have to reduce the size of my orchard and vineyard in the future if time does not allow for all to be cared for. It is a question that only time will answer.
I have a feeling that cutting down some of my trees will most likely be happening.
When that time comes, it will be a tough decision to make as to what varieties stay and what goes.
Your property looks similar to ours. We ended up terracing most of it and it is MUCH more enjoyable now. You get even less rain that we do, so being able to save it before it runs down the hill will be a great benefit for you. Also, all that thermal mass from the walls might help negate your late frost issues. We have had several late freezes where the trees closest to the walls seem to get some protection. I hope you post pics of the progress!
I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. You need to plant another 20-30 trees. Yeah, that will fix it!!
I went through a time like that when my children grew up and left. It was very different for me and my wife. Now we have grandkids and I love to teach ( the oldest ones) them about gardening and growing fruit. My oldest grandson turns five soon and he already has trees in our yard that he checks when he comes to visit. One grandkid story and I will stop, last summer we would play hide and seek in the yard. He loved hiding behind a long hedge of cherry bushes down one side of the yard. He came over one warm day in early November and wanted to play out side. We went out and he ran to hide behind the cherries. He looks through the completely bare tree at me compleatly upset and says “what happened to the leaves?” So I told him they fell off. He says " let’s pick them up and put them back on!" Lol
In 5 years I hope to have just about everything in production and have way more fruit than I can eat/store/preserve/ferment into adult beverages. Then I can share with neighbors and even sell some. Even in our very rural area we had no problem selling $500 worth of strawberries each of the last two years.
Having a small orchard (about 20 trees) in a cold zone, I don’t know if I can set a high expectation after 5 years.
Some of my trees are 5-8 years old. Most are 3-4 years old. In my zone, bad weather has greatly reduced or wiped out peaches, some plums and apples. Not thinning enough apples and some A pears, they have gone biennial on me.
Planting a variety of fruit trees could help ensure you may have something every year.
I’ll absolutely be documenting progress/changes in my orchard and will update with photos here. I’d love to see photos of your property if you have them.
I’d not given thought to thermal mass offering some protection against the frost, probably because most of those walls will be between 2-3’ in height, so below the fruiting wood. Perhaps the effects radiate upwards and offer some protection far enough from the walls to help. Half of the orchard is on a north-facing hillside, so while that may help delay blooming by a few days, those walls will not be getting as much direct sun at the critical time of year that would offer the most benefit. Still, you’ve given yet another reason to get to work on this project.
I think every little bit helps in frost pocket. I don’t know the specifics of your area, but we aren’t getting hit with 20F nights after blooms… it’s more like 26-28F for a few hours right before sunrise, so even if I only raise the temps around the trees by a couple of degrees, it can save me! Something else I am experimenting with, in addition to the walls, is putting a 4-6" layer of mulch around everything. In addition to keeping the ground moist, which creates a slightly warmer microclimate around the tree, I’m hoping it keeps the ground cooler and therefore delays leafing out and blooming.
To keep on topic here, in five years I hope to have altered the microclimate of my orchard to the point where I can consistently get good crops of everything including fruits I’ve been struggling with due to late freezes (i.e. figs and apricots).
In 5 years I’d hope the pear grafts I made might finally bloom, but I’m not counting on it
I’d like to hope some of the apple grafts I’m making now might take and fruit, but counting on that even less
It is really hard to for say where my backyard orchard will be in 5 years. I suspect that all of my apples should have fruited by then, as all of the desert apples I have look like they should bloom this year. Not sure about franken-tree grafts. Time will tell on those. My plums will need to be reigned in before then, as I didn’t realize how vigorous hybrid plums were compared to wild P. Americana. Though I’m planning on planting more hardy peaches this year, in my winter/spring frost pocket I suspect they won’t be a yearly occurrence .
I’m hoping we are still living in our current house and I will be pressing some of my first significant harvests of hard cider apples. I want to have cider pressing parties with friends/family where we press for hard cider and folks bring apples, have some fun, and take home cider for fresh cider or for fermenting.
However, my fear is that we will move either out of convenience locally (daycare, schools, and family - all which go together) or because we will have to move for me to keep in employment. So I may be starting everything all over again in 5 years. 
5 years is a long time. The time between the first two pictures is only 3.5 years…
October 2010 (6 months after moving in):
Spring 2014:
Last July, five and a half years after the first pic:
Left:
Right:
With everything growing in the above pictures, you would think that I’d be set for fruit. But, I still buy fruit. And not just tropical fruit or winter fruit from South America, but at the farmer’s market. There are so many ways to fail (bugs, fungus/rots, animals/birds, frost, bad pruning, bad (not) thinning, etc) and all it takes is one for there to not be much harvest. Now that my trees are getting pretty good sized, there is more incentive than ever to get it right.
Hopefully I’ve figured it all out in 5 years. Actually, I hope it happens a lot quicker than that. By 5 years, I want to be able to make intelligent decisions about the various cultivars, which will take a few years of regular harvests.
Glad you posted the pictures Bob! It’s one thing to say it but it’s really nice to see the transformation in your orchard. Can’t await to see where your orchard is at in 5 years.