Fruit Tree basics - Podcast

Audio podcast on soundcloud: Fruit Trees

https://soundcloud.com/stacia-trapp/fruit-trees-101-stacia-t

Roots: How much do they matter?

                When we finally had figured out what trees we wanted and what trees would work for us

and then what trees we had room for we were finally able to start looking for those trees. We quickly realized though that we still had more to consider. One where would we find these trees? And two why is there so many root options and what does this information even mean…

                If you can find the tree you are looking for at your local tree nursery you are probably going to be bringing your new tree home in a pot. That’s how all plants come right? Well apparently not. We learned that there are 2 ways to buy trees bare root and potted. What is this bare-root thing im talking about? Well in short it means just that when you bring your tree home it just the tree with bare roots no pot and minimal to no dirt.

                The long answer reason trees come bare rooted is because they are much easier and cheaper to ship. But there are more long-lasting benefits then just that. The trees that are planted in your yard as bare root will take to your soil better they will have a stronger root system and live longer. They also tend to be cheaper. So why wouldn’t you always buy bare root trees?

                Well the catch is a bare root tree is hard to get from a basic gardening center (like Stuarts or Steins) you have to order them from a nursery and there are none of those near us so we had to order our trees from nurseries in other states. Then we had to wait weeks/months for our trees to come in. the other draw back to a bare root tree is that they take 1-3 years longer to start producing fruit.

                The next thing you will see is lots of rootstock types when you are looking for a tree bare root tree. This really stressed me out till I realized that information doesn’t mean anything to me. That information means little to nothing to most people unless you plan on graphing trees or starting your own nursery. In short for us (the people looking to just have some fresh fruit in the summer/fall) it doesn’t mean much more than the size your tree will grow and that’s the same as knowing if you are buying a dwarf, semi-dwarf or standard tree, and those three options are normally what you will find sellers advertising their trees as.

               

Choosing of Your Fruit Trees: Have you thought about their Pollination needs?

Now that we have considered our zone/location, and what our specific soil and sun exposure may be we can now start looking at trees that would grow in the area we have in mind.

For us we picked out: apple, cherry, peach, pear, and plum tree varieties. But when we looked into buying them we realized we forgot to consider their pollination needs. Each tree would need a second tree of its kind for cross-pollination. So instead of 5 trees we now would need 10! That is a lot of fruit to harvest once the trees reach maturity. 

After looking at our space we had picked out for our trees we decided not to get the plum trees as we didn’t think we would have room for 10 but 8 would work.

Now that we were thinking about cross-pollination we realized if we were going to get 2 of each we wanted to be sure and get 2 different varieties of each (like Bing and a Rainier cherry tree) we wanted this not only for a variety of flavors but also for to help spread out the harvest load.  

This then lead us to realizing that each variety would have a different blooming time as well so we would need to make sure the trees we picked out would have somewhat overlapping blooms so that they would fertilize each other’s blooms, as that was the reason we needed 2 of each fruit tree.

What we thought would be an easy “just pick the fruit tree you like to eat” proses had a lot more research then we were prepared for.  

Soil Type, Sun Exposure, and Growth

               There are 3 basic types of soil (sand, silt/loamy, and clay) and from there they are broken down into lots more categories. Once you know your soil type you can then apply this information to what trees can survive in your location. And it might give you some insight to if you will have wet ground or dry.

You will also need to know this so you can plan watering times or know if a tree would drowned in the location you want to plant. It is important to have some insight into water patterns in your area, if you live in a wet area that has flooding often or standing water you probably won’t have much success with a tree that prefers dry ground. If you are buying for a new lot of land owner and are anxious to get started planting right away maybe ask your neighbors about this.

                When you consider where you will be planting your tree(s) also consider if your location will have lots of sun or very little. Most fruit trees will need at least half a day of sunlight if you want the good quality fruit. Planting them in a shaded area will hinder their fruit production when it is time to harvest.

                When you are considering the sun exposure your ideal planting location has don’t forget to consider what that location will be like in 5-20 years. Your young tree won’t stay 3-5 feet tall it will grow up to 15-20 feet maybe more and other plant around it will be growing as well. You wouldn’t want to plant your fruit tree next to a fast growing maple that in time will block out the sun from your fruit tree.

                When we picked our trees size mattered, I am terrified of heights so we chose dwarf and semi-dwarf trees. They wouldn’t grow as tall as a normal fruit tree would and we also would have more room for more variety of trees because we could plant them closer together. Have you considered what tree size you want or how many trees you want to plant?  

Know Your Zone

 You may want a banana tree but it may not grow in your area. Some tools are helpful to guide you to what trees are best for you and your area. When you are looking into buying a tree you will see that all trees have growing zones.  Do you know what zone you are in? You will need to find out if a banana tree can grow near you. And if it can’t, what trees would?  This is a link to arborday foundation’s zone look up.  http://shop.arborday.org/content.aspx?page=zone-lookup .

For more detailed information about what trees work in your area you may want to use their “Best Tree Finder: Tree Wizard” https://www.arborday.org/shopping/trees/treewizard/intro.cfm however this second link will ask for much more than your location because location is not the only thing to consider when you are considering what tree will grow in your area.  In this blog we are focusing on what is best for Zone 5. Or for those of you like me that live in WI, we will be talking about what grows in the South/East half of the state. 


The below map is a very detailed map if you are looking for more specific information then the 10 zones (in the US) that the arbor day foundation link will provide.

Blog Introduction for Fruit Trees in Your Backyard

Blog Introduction

    Hello, my Name is Stacia. My new husband  I are newish home owners (close on our house on holloween 2014)  and one of the reasons we wanted to own a house was so we could grow some of our own food. we are still learning lots about this, but we jumped in with our first step in making this a reality. Geting trees in the ground as we knew they would take a few years to start producing. This is our 3rd spring in our home and hopefully last year planting new trees for a long while. As we have learned so much I wanted to share this with you all in a short and sweet recap of our adventure.


In this blog I want to:

-          - Share what I am learning about my hobby/interest in fruit trees.

-         -  Reach out to Landowners with an interest in growing their own fruit/food.

-         -  Teach others about Fruit Trees  so they are set up for success

-         -  Make a post daily for the rest of the week.

-         -  Chose a blog that is convenient for me and my readers. I will use Blogspot because it is free and I like that it requires a sign in through google so we don’t need multiple log-in information and yet still more secure than a random open location. http://backyardfruittrees.blogspot.com/

   If you made it past the title you must know that this blog will be focused on fruit trees. So let’s jump in and figure out what tree you want, and also learn how to know what trees will work for you.