Fall Orchard Update

We are entering our second year of planting and maintaining our survival orchard. (Here's my original post on the subject. I've made a few additions and changes to our plan since I first posted it.)

Apple trees, comfrey, and newly planted almond. Blueberries on the back right. 

The comfrey we planted thrived. Hopefully I can divide them sometime next year and get more plants to spread the happiness throughout the orchard.

Speaking of spreading something, I have been dumping duck poo and litter in the areas in between the trees. Duck poo is wonderful stuff for plants and will help improve the soil, which is something our hard-packed clay desperately needs. I am careful not to get it too close to the trees lest it "burn" the them, but that seems to be less of an issue with duck manure than chicken manure.

All the trees and bushes we planted over the past year survived despite the drought that continues unabated. If we do not get a lot of rain and snow this winter, the powers-that-be are going to add more water restrictions which are going to make it hard to keep things alive.

"Bluecrop" blueberry

Our blueberries will technically be old enough next year to give us a crop. They still seem pretty small to me, so I'll be interested in seeing what actually happens. Look how pretty blueberries get in the fall! Blueberries don't only produce delicious fruit; they also are beautiful landscaping plants. All you suburbanites with hoity-toity neighbors should take note! ;)

A sloooooow growing pecan tree

Last weekend we did two important fall orchard tasks. First, we put tree guards around the trunks of our trees. The tree guards will help keep voles, mice,and rabbits from eating the bark off the trees. Since the guards are white, they will also help reflect light on sunny winter days and prevent southwest injury. We will take the tree guards down in the spring because, according to The Holistic Orchard, they hold too much moisture against the trunk and provide cover for borers.

The fun (albeit exhausting) task was to plant our new trees: two pears and an almond.

Our new All-in-One Almond tree

I think nut trees are an essential part of any survival orchard. Last year we planted pecans, this year we planted an almond, and we will be adding walnuts in the future. You might be surprised to learn that folks as far north as Zone 5 can grow almonds. There are two varieties that will grow here, Hall's Hardy Almond and the All-in-One Almond. It seems that more people like the taste and texture of the All-in-One Almond and so that is the variety we went with. Either variety will make lovely ornamental trees in addition to producing lots of nuts.

One of our new pear trees. 

We planted two varieties of pears, Maxine (also known as Starking Delicious) and Seckel. These two varieties will cross-pollinate each other and have different strengths. Maxine is your typical Bartlett-type pear. It is great for eating fresh or canning and supposedly will last in cold storage for a while. Seckel pears are a smaller pear that are great for fresh eating but also dry well. We planting standard-sized pear trees so they will grow between 18-20 feet tall and 12-13 feet wide.

A drawing of the orchard layout, mostly to scale
The dots with circles around them are current plantings; plain dots are future plantings

We're making slow but steady progress. I look forward to the day when all this hard work will pay off!

Late Winter Pruning

I appreciate the responses I've gotten so far about your favorite can openers. Keep them coming! It seems like everybody has a different favorite.

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Before Hubby Dear and I even closed on the property I call the Harried Homemaker Acres, we started planning an orchard. It was going to be a large orchard because we were going to own five whole acres, which seemed like a lot to us at the time. Now, of course, I wish we had more like 20 acres. We got a bunch of catalogs and selected all the different kinds of fruit and nut trees that we were going to plant. Of course we were going to have at least two trees of every species that will grow in our climate! We made a scale drawing of our acreage and planned the location for each tree, allowing for ideal cross-pollination, protection from frost, and shelter from winds.

The reality? Nearly four years later, we have a grand total of one fruit tree and a handful of berry bushes. Our harvests have been scant to none, and it is mostly our own fault.

Granted, I have popped out a couple more babies and Hubby Dear's work schedule is more hectic than either one of us would have imagined four years ago. The major problem, however, is that we have been guilty of the crime of not-so-benign neglect when it comes to garden matters.

We're turning over a new leaf in 2011 and today we did a very important garden chore - pruning.

Why do you prune fruit trees?

According to the North Carolina Extension Service:

1. If you shape your tree to develop a strong structure, it will prevent breakage due to wind or a heavy fruit crop.
2. You'll remove dead, diseased, or otherwise poor quality growth, improving the overall health of your tree.
3. You can shape the tree to insure that light can get to the center of the tree. More light = more fruit!
4. All this pruning will keep air flow moving throughout the tree, discouraging diseases that thrive in moist conditions.

In other words, pruning will give you better quality of fruit and even cause your tree to bear earlier and live longer. As long as you do not remove more than 1/2 of the tree's branches in one year, you really cannot prune too much.

What tools do you need to prune?

Depending on the size of the tree you're pruning you may need any or all of the following:

• Secateurs- Hand-held, scissor-like pruners for small branches and twigs
• Loppers - For thicker branches, say 1/4 to 1/2" diameter
• Pruning Saw - For the thickest branches
• A ladder if your tree is tall.

Most pruning should take place in late winter or early spring while the tree is still dormant, which is why Hubby Dear were working outside while it looked like this:

Fog enveloping the hills

Our first victim subject was our dwarf Montmorency sour cherry tree. We got it as a freebie when we ordered our blackberries and raspberries back in 2007. Honestly, I never expected it to live. We did pretty much everything wrong when we planted it and I thought the combination of our own ineptitude and clay soil would do it in. Despite the odds, it has survived.

"Before" Cherry Tree

Before we began, we read a few of the references we have on hand. I recommend The Backyard Orchardistby Stella Otto as a good starting place if you're new to fruit trees. You should also do an online search for your state's extension service. Ours has a host of PDF files available with information tailored for the varieties that thrive in our state's climate. We've printed off hundreds of pages on crops we grow or will likely grow and I store them behind the "gardening" tab of my preparedness binder.

Our goals in shaping this particular tree was to:

1. Define a central leader - a central branch from which the other branches grow off. Trees like apple, cherry, plum, pear, and apricot generally are pruned using the central leader method. Others, such as peach, use another method called open center, which is just like it sounds.
2. Define scaffold branches. These are the smaller branches that grow off the central leader. You want them to be distributed on both sides of the tree and be spaced well apart.
3. Remove any branches that cross or rub against each other.
4. Remove anything dead.

Here's the "After":

"After" Cherry tree

Hopefully, the tree will appreciate the TLC and produce a bountiful crop of cherries. Ideally, the angle between the scaffolds and the central leader should be between 60 and 80 degrees. We need to think about using elastic or limb spreaders to achieve this.

Blackberries

Small fruits like raspberries (depending on the variety) and blackberries also benefit from some winter pruning. We currently grow two types of thornless blackberries: Chester, a semi-erect (bushy) variety and Triple Crown, a trailing (requires trellising) variety. All the pruning for trailing blackberries is done after harvest time in late summer/early fall, but we needed to work on the Chesters.

Here's the Chesters "before":

"Before" Blackberries with our square foot garden in the background

We thinned out the extra canes and cut back the lateral growth. Much like the cherry tree, our berries have suffered from neglect and having to compete with weeds.

Here's the "after":

"After" blackberries

If you have fruit in your garden, be better than me and don't wait three or four years to begin to be a good steward. If you're thinking of planting an orchard or berries, keep in mind that it's not all pie and jam. There is a fair bit of maintainence that is required. But think of the rewards!

Hubby Dear and I have made a commitment to make our garden a priority this year. If all goes well, we'll unearth that fabulous orchard plan and get to planting in 2012.