Starting the Family Apple Orchard

When two boys can eat their weight in organic apples in the course of a week, the grocery store just doesn’t cut it.  Good food is only getting more expensive, so a home orchard was a no-brainer for our family.  We will, of course, have to wait a few years to really start enjoying the “fruit of our labor”, but the return on investment should be great as long as we can keep everything maintained.

The biggest step for us was in the planning.  The questions we had to answer for ourselves included:

• Where will we get the trees?

We chose to order online from an established nursery with a large selection and a good reputation.

• What varieties?  And how many?

There are so many varieties of apples, the decision can be overwhelming.  Apple trees need at least two varieties for pollination purposes, so we decided to chose a few that we know well and enjoy, then pick good pollinators for each (the nursery was a big help with this).  

• When will we plant?

Planting is recommended for late fall, once the trees have gone dormant.  This was also the safe time for the nursery to ship the trees, so things worked out well.

• Where will we plant?

We chose an area in our front yard since the site will get full sun most of the day, has a slight slope for good drainage, and will be easy to keep an eye on. 

• What special consideration must be taken? 

Since all of ours are dwarf trees, spacing can be pretty tight.  This is important to us given the small plot we are on.  We also wanted a good variety because it will give us opportunity to see what works best on our land.  We made sure to include some disease resistant varieties, just in case that proves to be a problem.  Taste preference, intended use, and hardiness zone are definitely big factors in decision making.  We expect ours to be picked and eaten on the spot so we started with a few of our family’s favorites (Gala and Fuji). 

I had never planted a bare-root tree before, so when it came time to plant, I referred to Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: The Indispensable Green Resource for Every Gardener.  This is a great a resource, and being an encyclopedia, everything is alphabetic making information easy to find One important planting consideration for grafted trees is placement of bud union.  Rodale's recommendation is to plant with the bud union 2" above to surface to maintain the trees' dwarf sizing.  Pruning was done prior to shipment, but next year I fully intend to pull this book back out prior to making any cuts.

We plan on doubling and possibly tripling the number of trees in our yard.  Once I can see the trees are growing well I will order some more, and then when I see which varieties are most productive for us I will definitely capitalize by adding a few more of those (great resource, by the way).

We plan on doubling and possibly tripling the number of trees in our yard.  Once I can see the trees are growing well I will order some more, and then when I see which varieties are most productive for us I will definitely capitalize by adding a few more of those.

If anyone has any suggestions or would like to tell us what has worked in your experience or what your favorite varieties are to grow, we are eager to hear it.  Feel free to comment.