Creating an apple orchard

[Jim Timber]

Last spring a bunch of my habitat guys (we're all avid hunters) got together to do a grafting workshop. I came home with 17 trees with nowhere to put them, so I got creative and came up with the Foster Bucket concept (buckets have drain holes and are initially filled with pea gravel so they don't plug up) and proceeded to grow them in my front yard all summer. One rootstock didn't make it, and 6 scions didn't take - but I ended up with 16 apple trees.

Summer came and went, and I still didn't have anywhere to plant them. And I knew keeping them in the shop all winter was a bad idea since I'd have to bucket water out there and that's just asking for trouble. So I committed to at least getting them in the ground up North before frost.

I'd had the spot for the orchard picked out and even taped for 2 years, long enough some of my tape had been tugged off the trees by deer. This was after a tank of gas in the little echo knocking down the suckers.

At which point I promptly ordered a brush cutter.

Yep, I like that method a lot better!

 

[Jim Timber]

I didn't have enough time to clean up all the downed wood, but my goal was to get it all on the ground so I could buck and haul it out later. There's some snags from wind fall early in September. We had a pretty good storm and lost a few trees from it. Those were left until I could get them unstuck without catching in other trees. Eventually, I did get everything safely on the ground.

I haven't stacked much in the whole process outside of burning three brush piles to make room to get the trees maneuvered, and moving wood out of the way so I could get the atv in with supplies.

After a bunch more cutting, it's starting to take shape.

So having some mostly clean ground to work with, I started laying out where the trees would go.

These are all on b118 root stock, so they'll become decent sized eventually. I decided on 8 paces which works out roughly to 24' OC.

I don't have an enclosed trailer, but I have a bunch of scrap junk plywood, so I made the most janky cover ever rolled at 70mph in Minnesota - it made the 110 mile trip fine.

I'm kinda surprised I didn't get stopped.

 

[Jim Timber]

First shovel in the ground produced a pleasant surprise of 9+" of black hummus over silty sand (this is a well drained ridge). Even the sand was moist despite having been a couple weeks since we'd had any rain. The apples should do real well here.

Foster bucket's moment of truth; the "plug" for lack of a better term came out intact.

These are bagged manure compost with black soil over that on top of the pea gravel. If you let them dry out, the plug pulls away from the bucket walls and they pull up whole without any resistance. When wet (it rained before I got the last of them planted) they need some coercion to release from the sides. The roots came right out to the edge of the bucket, but didn't "J" so I wouldn't suggest using these more than one year's growing season. The roots did find the bottom, but never plugged the holes.

First one in the ground.

2.5 holes later, my Father in law's True Temper shovel gave up.

The Woods 2.0 hauled everything up to the site like a champ.

I don't have any more pics, but I got all the trees planted, caged, mulched (with crushed marble so the mice don't burrow in it), and trunks screened. Two days later it snowed.

I still need to open more canopy to the West and get all the wood out.


(to be continued in spring)

Thanks for looking!

 

[Sagetown]

Jim Timber; that's terrific. Be looking for your update. opcorn:

 

[square1]

I'd had the spot for the orchard picked out and even taped for 2 years, long enough some of my tape had been tugged off the trees by deer.

Good to hear, I must be right on the same schedule

2.5 holes later, my Father in law's True Temper shovel gave up.

At which pint you promptly ordered a power auger?

 

[Jim Timber]

At which point I went into town looking for another shovel. I'd been wanting a brush cutter for a couple years and decided it was time to make that happen on this job.

The ground up there has never been compacted, but was full of roots. Once the sod plug was cut, the whole thing peeled out nicely and there was no need to dig down to loosen up the sand because of how moist it was. These were really easy to plant.

Thanks Sagetown. This has been a labor of love. I planted a Honeycrisp and Wolf River in 2012, and my WR promptly died in 2013 and my HC nearly didn't survive to see 2014 (it's still in rough shape and will be pruned back this winter to start over). Growing the grafts was a learning experience and caused me to find out what mistakes I'd made with the others. This time around I should have much better success rates.

 

[Torch68]

Are deer a problem in your area? I planted 28 apple trees this past spring and by mid summer had to place a cage around each one , deer loved them.

 

[Sagetown]

Are deer a problem in your area? I planted 28 apple trees this past spring and by mid summer had to place a cage around each one , deer loved them.

I had to do the same for my loblolly pines.

 

[Jim Timber]

Deer are definitely a problem! I tried planting some hybrid poplar a couple years ago as an experiment for a buddy who grows them commercially, and they did great until the deer found them. I don't have a single tree from 75 cuttings.

They're pretty hard to see in the pics (they're difficult to see in person), but the apples are caged with 5' hoops of remesh wire. Welded wire fencing is roughly 3x as expensive and doesn't have any appreciable benefit over the remesh outside of being more rust resistant so my friends have all gone to using remesh at about $8 a tree ($100 a 150' roll).

I put marking tape on 3 points of the cages so I don't hit them while driving until I get the t-posts in and they stand out a bit more on their own.

 

[Jim Timber]

When I was growing the bare root seedlings/grafts in my front yard they weren't protected at all. We have deer in the area, but none of them have ever come up to where the trees lived prior to the relocation up north into the woods.

 

[Torch68]

How did you guys come up with the rootstock/ main stem combinations?

 

[Jim Timber]

B118 root stock was chosen because of it's cold hardiness, and how it'll grow in poorer soils. I have a (relatively good) silty/sand subsoil that'll turn to concrete if it dries, but many of our group has poorer sandy soils. Dolgo is another one which would probably grow well here and we might be doing another workshop in the spring trying some of those.

The scion wood was chosen based on the various characteristics of the apples they produce. Some are early season dropping (ripen and fall in late August/early September), and some hold their fruit into late November, and all points inbetween. These are good for wildlife food, as it stratifies the availability over several months. Some are people-food cultivars, and others aren't even edible unless you're really hard up for something to eat. You need at least two dissimilar varieties within a half mile (so they say) of each other for pollinators, so having a good mix of crab and larger varieties ensures there's sufficient pollen available for the bees to make things work.

My honeycrisp, and wolf river that I planted in 2012 were intended as people food and located where they'd be a short walk out the back yard from where the house will eventually go. The wolf river didn't survive, and my honeycrisp is in rough shape after last winter. I have several food-grade (cider, sauce, baking, eating raw) varieties in the orchard as well, but I also have a few different crabs which are only there for the benefit of the critters. The orchard is about 1/8 mile from where the honeycrisp remains. I'll probably plant some other fruit variety where the wolf river was. A neighbor in the metro (where I live) has an apricot he's given me permission to prune for scion wood, so that might be a good one to put there.