The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Fruit => Topic started by: dannytsg on December 10, 2013, 02:46:21 pm
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Just looking for some advice really. I like the idea of planting some fruit trees on my land but want to start small. I have a 6mx6m area in mind to keep it to just a few trees maybe 3 or 4.
How much cultivation do fruit trees take and generally what would be the best starter option?
Regards
Dan
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Hi Dan - not sure where abouts you are or what your land & other environmental factors are like ...
You'd be surprised how much you can get into a 6x6m area - especially as there are so many nurseries grafting heavy cropping varieties onto dwarf rootstock.
Have a look on various fruit tree grower websites, so you can get an idea of the ranges available, how long they take to produce a crop, what will be suitable for your land and space (and the costs!). Go for varieties that you like and will make use of. Remember to check if they are "self-fertile" or need a cross-pollinator.
We've got a range - Medlar, pear, quince, eating & cooking apples, cherry, plums, damsons and crab apples in our small orchard area. With hazel, blackthorn (sloes), hawthorn, Rowan and Elderberry, with more crab apples & damsons in the hedge-line weaved with hedging and wild roses (for the hips). You can make use of "under-planting" - we grow gooseberries, blackcurrants, jostaberries, wineberries, in between our orchard trees too, with a line of raspberries dividing one side of our orchard from our vegetable area with loganberries and tayberries growing up a boundary fence.
As long as you prepare the planting-hole well with the nutrients the trees need and keep grass away from the trunk by at least 2ft, watering well the first growing year there isn't a huge amount of maintenance needed - occasional feeding and watering when it gets really dry, some varieties need hardly any trimming at all.
Also a good idea to keep bees to help with the pollination too ;) :bee:
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Hi Dan - not sure where abouts you are or what your land & other environmental factors are like ...
You'd be surprised how much you can get into a 6x6m area - especially as there are so many nurseries grafting heavy cropping varieties onto dwarf rootstock.
Have a look on various fruit tree grower websites, so you can get an idea of the ranges available, how long they take to produce a crop, what will be suitable for your land and space (and the costs!). Go for varieties that you like and will make use of. Remember to check if they are "self-fertile" or need a cross-pollinator.
We've got a range - Medlar, pear, quince, eating & cooking apples, cherry, plums, damsons and crab apples in our small orchard area. With hazel, blackthorn (sloes), hawthorn, Rowan and Elderberry, with more crab apples & damsons in the hedge-line weaved with hedging and wild roses (for the hips). You can make use of "under-planting" - we grow gooseberries, blackcurrants, jostaberries, wineberries, in between our orchard trees too, with a line of raspberries dividing one side of our orchard from our vegetable area with loganberries and tayberries growing up a boundary fence.
As long as you prepare the planting-hole well with the nutrients the trees need and keep grass away from the trunk by at least 2ft, watering well the first growing year there isn't a huge amount of maintenance needed - occasional feeding and watering when it gets really dry, some varieties need hardly any trimming at all.
Also a good idea to keep bees to help with the pollination too ;) :bee:
Thanks for that.
It sounds ideal for me to get dwarf root stock trees that I can plant that will provide a good yield. The land itself is in Devon and is a sub-divided smallholding that was bigger prior to me purchasing some of the land from the previous owner.
Could you recommend any good small rootstock trees for apples?
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M27 is the most dwarfing, followed by M9 and then M26 for apples. You should look at pruning forms too. Many commercial orchards really pack them in these days. If you train them as cordons or ballerinas, you can fit a lot of trees in a small space. Each tree produces less fruit but overall you have more productivity than if you prune to the traditional bush form.
Most of my apples are on MM106 which is the next root stock up after M26 and I'm pruning to half-standard and have allowed 6m between trees in each direction so I'd only fit one tree on your patch! The type of pruning will partly dictate the amount of maintenance they need but compared to most things around the smallholding, fruit trees are simple. Certainly less time consuming than livestock, or even veges for that matter :excited:.
H
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I use 106 and 111
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I've just bought and planted 3 apple trees plus a pear and a plum - all on a root stock which will hopefully mean trees no bigger than about 3 or 3.5m
Based on the ordering and delivery experience I can highly recommend Orange Pippin Trees (http://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/) but I'll reserve judgement on the quality of the trees until I see how they do next year! In particular I suggest you visit their website though as it has loads of useful information to help you decide what to get!
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Apple trees are a fairly long term investment. Its at least four or five years before you should hope for a return. Anything you get earlier, you should look upon as a bonus. Next years nothing, the tree has hardly started. :tree: