Zone 4 Orchard Harvest Time Schedule (Minnesota, Wisconsin)

[ShiverMinneapolisZ4b]

I will add links to other threads regarding Zone 4 Home Orchard choices:

Unusual:

Oddball berries for zone 4

I like variety, in trying to fill my orchard with as many different fruits and berries as I can get a hold of. So far I have: Apples, nine trees and three in the pipeline. Cherries, six variety in bush and three tree. Haskaps, 5 varieties Saskatoon, 2 varieties People lead sand cherry Nanking cherry Aronia Currant, red, black, white, pink Gooseberry Jostaberry Plums, two varieties Raspberries, 3 varieties Goji Seaberry Grapes, 3 varieties Nagoon berries, 4 varieties Hops Rhubarb Watermelon ber…

Helping an amateur figure out fruit trees in zone 4b

Hi everyone, hopefully this is okay! We’re in the process of buying an house in the country with a little under 5 acres. I’m pretty experienced in growing most vegetables (i’m currently growing 25 varieties of hot peppers), and have always wanted fruit trees, but never had the opportunity to commit to a tree. I’m in zone 4b, in eastern South Dakota. I’m looking for a little help planning out the best spot to put theses trees, and some recommendations for varieties. I may be getting a little ove…

Apples:

Zone 4b Apple Tree Suggestions…with a catch!

Hi all, I searched far and wide for an answer, but came up empty. Here is my predicament: I saw Scott’s wonderful post advising to watch how many Golden Delicious sports you have, which made me realize I have many (whoops). Currently, I have (or purchased) the following trees: Honeycrisp, Golden Delicious, Rubinette, and a Hooples (I know it’s zone 5, but I’m going to try after reading the reviews). So, does anyone have a good non-GD tree suggestions for a zone 4b grower that I can add to the g…

Plums:

Plums in Zone 4 midwest: Creating Diverse set of Black Knot Resistant Plums

(EDITS: UPDATED BASED ON FORUM FEEDBACK ON 2025-02-07.) I am trying to create a short list of Zone 4 hardy plums that are Black Knot resistant. (Lots of Black Knot growing on wild, tall Black Cherry trees here.) Yes I know that resistant does not mean immune. After that my next goals are flavor variety first and and a relatively wide harvest time second. I’m not the biggest fan of over-sweet fruit, so Waneta sounds appealing. So I wanted to check if I have a good choices. My notes below p…

Zone 4 European Plums

I’m starting to add some European plums to my backyard orchard here in Minnesota zone 4b. I’m planning to add Mount Royal, Opal, Yakima, Count Althann’s Gage, Silver Prune, Long John, Autumn Sweet, and Burbank Grand Prize. I’m also interested in Yellow Egg, Bavay’s Green Gage, and Golden Gage. Does anyone have experience or knowledge about growing any of these varieties in zone 4? Would they be likely to survive a once-in-a-decade cold snap to -33* F?

Pears:

Pears Zone 4 Fire Blight resistant

I’m creating a list of zone 4 fire blight resistant pears. For me I plan to multigraft over branches. Summer Crisp (U of MN ussuriensis hybrid on OHxF 97) is what I’ve ordered for the base tree. Based on the list below, and my base tree, I envision grafting Harrow Delight (early-Aug), Golden Spice (late Aug), Kieffer for Asian crossbreed (Early Sept), Magness or Warren or maybe White Doyenne (mid-late Sept), Comice (Oct), maybe Gem (late Aug). Wondering if anyone has comments on improving var…

Recommendations for Cold Hardy Pears, Zone 4

This is my first post, and I’d like to thank you for having me. I’m in Northern Maine’s Aroostook County, Zone 4A, and my goal is to install an pear and apple orchard with cold-hardy varieties. In 2017 and 2018, my kids and I planted 400 Bartlett pear root stock from Lawyer Nursery, and those have shown about 99% survival rate in our depleted, acidic soil, even through a couple summer droughts. What cold-hardy pear varieties have you all had luck with in Zone 4? I enjoy Bosc, but everything …

Nuts:

Recommendations for Cold Hardy Nuts, Zone 4

I’m looking to add a few nut trees to my property that will produce nuts worth collecting. I got buartnut, butternut, and hazelberts… all doing pretty well. I killed my American chestnuts by not watering their first year, but got a bunch of “Qing” (seed/nuts) from Perfect Circle (and this time I’ll water them). I’ve been told that maybe a Carpathian walnut, and hican would survive? Black walnuts seem like they might work, but not sure they are worth the trouble (never had a cultivated black wal…