sticks begin to sprout

a few of my newly planted bare root trees have begun to sprout leaves. like kids, no two trees are alike and though they are planted at the same time - timing of the leaves can be separated by weeks.

the picture on the right is a cherry tree - and was planted in late january. i havent had a chance to paint the trunk yet, but will soon enough. i am hopefull all trees will make it - time will tell.

you may notice that this tree is pretty short. i am a disciple of ed laivo and his backyard orchard culture practices - which keep trees in the 5-6 foot range. in order to do that, they need to be cut short when planted, to force lower scaffolding limbs. trimming of the tree will occur in the summer - after fruiting and in the fall, where i cut for strcuture as well as cutting for height.

a peek into the orchard

here is my orchard! i have over 40 trees and as you can tell i am following the backyard orchard culture as pontificated by ed laivo at dave wilson nursery.

the picture gives a pretty good account of the layout as well as the drip irrigation setup to keep the trees watered.

I have mounded mulch around the base of the trees to help maintain ground moisture and also improve the conditions of the poor soil i have in diamond springs.

an orchard is born...

february of 2008 found me digging 27 holes in the area of my garden dedicated to fruit trees. i obtain my trees from my local nursery, the front yard nursery (fyn), in el dorado. i order the varieties i want and get them as bare root trees. not only are bare root trees cheaper, but there is better success rate from using bare root tree's rather than ones purchased in pots.

fyn gets its bare root trees from the grower - dave wilson nurseries, if you dont know what bare root trees are check out the dave wilson website.

dave wilson provides first class trees, grafted on to the proper root stock for our area. now how, you ask, do i fit 27 fruit trees in my area? although bigger than my old garden, it certainly is not a large orchard. well, ed laivo from dave wilson has some strategies for keeping fruit trees smaller and thus allowing normal backyard growers the opportunity to have many trees with successive ripening with multiple varieties. the concept is known as backyard orchard culture - get on their website to check it out.

well, if you read about backyard orchard culture, you get an idea of what i am doing. i will keep my trees between 5-6 feet tall and they are staggered in the area to allow enough room for decent lateral space. trees i planted in 2008 include:

royal rainier cherry, lapins cherry, rainier cherry, black tartarian cherry, utah giant cherry, sweetheart cherry, sun burst cherry, juneglo nectarine, arctic jay nectarine, heavenly white nectarine, puget gold apricot, earli autumn apricot, liz's late nectarine, arctic blaze nectarine, autumn glo apricot, pink lady apple, granny smith apple, emerald beaut plum, dapple dandy pluot, emerald drop pluot, warren pear, golden delicious apple, santa rosa plum, flavor king pluot, flavor queen pluot, sauce zee nectarine and arctic rose nectarine.

as you can tell, i have a thing for cherries and nectarines. following ed laivo's directions - in addition to summer pruning, i prune back about 2/3 of the growth on each tree, in late december/early january.

my orchard isnt stopping there - i have enough room for many more trees that will be planted in winter of 2009 - stay tuned.