Email a copy of 'Maximizing the Homestead Apple Orchard, by Eric K.' to a friend
Loading ...E-Mail 'Maximizing the Homestead Apple Orchard, by Eric K.' To A Friend
Loading ... Loading ...23 Comments
- Ad Follow the Author Don Shift Basic SHTF Radio: A cop's brief guide for understanding simple solutions for SHTF radio communicationIntimidated and don’t know where to start with radio? This book is the perfect guide to what options you have i.e. GMRS, CB, to ham and basic communication topics.
- Ad Ready Made Resources Anytone Termn-8RCall us if you have Questions 800-627-3809
Do you have a suggestion of early, mid and late season low chill apples for southern coastal region 8-9?
Tall Spindle Apple Trellis,
I was watching a podcast a few weeks ago, http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/permaculture-part-five, where they mentioned Tall Spindle Apple Trellis systems that have a high yield. I had never heard of this system before.
Have any readers used such a system and what kind of success as achieved?
Yes. I started one here after learning from members of our fruit society.
one member who does very intense management produced 60,000 lbs on 1.5 acres, but it required lots of cost input.
Beekeeper I used your query “early, mid and late season low chill apples for southern coastal region 8-9?” and found several southern homesteading webpages describing best apple trees for your area.
I done plenty of grafting but I have to say I’ve never cut my old apple trees down to do it. Never used electrical tape or any tape to do it. Wax and a proper as the article describes so well insertion incision and a wedge scion works for me.
Probability the 2 most important things I learned by trial and error (my fav school sad to say) is ensure that the young trees get a 50.00 hole for a 20 dollar tree as to say a hole big enough the root ball can be gently spread out (not crammed into a too small hole) and to start them out with a good mix of native soil and composts. Some say don’t do that the tree will not search… nonsense. As I live in the well named Granite State my hole digging is on my knees spending more time with a prybar than the shovel getting rocks out of the apple tree hole.
#2 is ENOUGH WATER. I used to water by hose and such. Found out that I was vastly over estimating the amount of water that actually got to the tree roots.
Now I use a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a 3/8 inch weep hole drilled into the bottom edge. I fill that daily (unless it rains) and it slowly leaks into the soil soaking the roots well. I have well draining soil so your area might be slightly different. When in doubt stick your finger into the soil about 3 inches. Is it wet? Don’t water. If damp or dry Water. Farmers have dirty hands and knees.
As an example I had two pre-water bucket apple trees planted three years ago between the deer and lack of enough water scarcely doubled in size. The two new apple trees I planted THIS Spring looking like bare sticks ALL 4 had the buckets this year after a friend at Agway mentioned I wasn’t watering the trees well enough. Now the NEW trees are almost tripled in size and the older trees almost doubled.
So this fall the anti-deer circle fencing goes up, the trunk guard goes on to keep voles from eating the bark and killing them.
Also I am setting up Apple Tree Guilds per the Permaculture system. I’ve planted garlic scapes around them as bug-critter deterrent as well as Block 14 Russian Comfrey as a chop and drop fertilizing accumulator. Next spring I’ll be adding native plums beside my semi-dwarf apple trees. I already have mason bee houses working for excellent pollination.
Research side dressing fertilizers. Worthwhile investment to get a solid apple tree that will produce for decades.
Good tip on using 5 gallon buckets for watering fruit trees. Several years ago my boss had me plant a bunch of apple trees for him. It did not go well as most of them died out and I’m certain it was due to a lack of water. He always schedules too much in too little time. So that was a $1,000+ mistake. I’d like to replant sometime in the near future, but with more water of course.
I’m glad you mentioned about adding amendments to the soil with apple trees. I’ve also heard “advice” on not doing it and I also consider it as nonsense. Not everything that is taught by the university is correct. I know I’m preaching to the choir so I’ll stop preaching…
Changing the variety of a tree by grafting is also called, “top-working”. I do not recommend doing this on a tree bigger than your wrist for two reasons. Such drastic cutting-back of a large tree leaves a large mass of roots without enough leaves to feed it. Many roots will die, or become susceptible to fungal infection and you are likely to lose the whole tree in a year or two. Also the huge wound is not likely to heal before rot gets in….again, in a few years your tree will break in a windstorm.
You can try grafting small branches of an established tree to another variety. Sometimes the tree will reject the grafts, preferring its “own flesh and blood”, but often the grafts will grow. You can then over a number of years prune away the original branches, always keeping enough to enure vigorous growth to heal the pruning wounds and feed the roots.
Often in once-farmed areas that have had apple orchards you can find numerous wild or “volunteer” apple saplings. These can be moved into your orchard and used as rootstocks. Best to transplant (in Fall or early Spring) a year or more before you graft, to allow the tree to become established in its new location. When ready to graft, I will prune away most of the branches and graft several of them to the same variety, to increase chances of a “take”, and guide development of a strong scaffold of branches.
The writer’s caution about not touching cut surfaces is important. My “take” rate went from 50% to 90% when I learned this.
Whenever possible I use the “whip-and-tongue” style of graft. The bark graft described by the writer does not IME work as well. I use “saran” type soft, stretchy plastic wrap to seal grafts. I cut the roll into many rolls of 1″ wide tape, and wrap two layers around the graft. I find that this is stretchy enough that it does not impede growth, and it degrades enough after a year or two to fall off naturally.
I enthusiastically second the writer’s recommendation of an apple orchard. You can also make applejack from cider that turns “hard”, which will be of great value for trading. Apples sliced 1/4″ thick will dry on a screen hung over your woodstove in two days or less, and will keep indefinitely (unless you have children)
If a neighbor has an apple tree within 100 yards, can we plant an apple tree in our yard? We live in a small town n don’t have a yard big enough for an orchard.
Yes. Not all apple species require cross pollination.
Both Red and Golden Delicious for example are self-pollinating but my Honeycrisp is not. All I do with it is take either a blossom or a small (plastic car model size) paintbrush and either take several of the blossoms from one (donor) tree (any species will work) and go to my HoneyCrisp and put flower-to-flower and gently rotate them between my fingers. One blossom will pollinate 4-6 of the HoneyCrisp blossoms. I do the same with the paintbrush… I just put the brush into the blossom of the donor tree and then gently brush the blossom of the receiving tree(s).
This takes a little while so it might not be practical in an orchard setting, but for the homesteader with a dozen or so non self-pollinating trees, it might take an hour or three. Good luck. It has worked for me for almost 20 years now…
Nice to read a down to earth uplifting write-up. The yellow transparent apples are the standard in the rainforests of SE Alaska. The Whiney crabapple was another winner. Trouble was, the bears loved visiting at harvest time. You have to share.
Your unique qualifications are rare and immensely valuable; I’ll be you have a lot of gardeners as friends.
Hi Eric, thanks for the article, you’ve encouraged me to try apples again.
For anyone interested in grafting, a good way to practice is to take some cuttings as Eric mentioned in mid winter, and then graft them back onto the same branch in the spring. Many years ago I taught a small group of about 12 people how to graft apple scions onto root stock that was only pinkie diameter. They did two plants each and we had 100% take, so it’s not super difficult and fun to play with. You can also change grape varieties over fairly easily if you find the ones you planted aren’t that great. Find a friend or relative with a better variety and graft them onto your vines.
An apple tree is also a perfect tree for a small garden – nice shape, white/pink flowers early summer and abundant fruit. Why plant any other tree?
When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s there were at least three small orchards just in our neighborhood, probably throwbacks to much harder times. Much later they were all cut down. It would be nice to see orchards make a comeback. I really enjoyed your article.
Eric K! What a great article and tutorial on grafting… We’ve never grafted a tree, although we have been the beneficiaries of this work among several of the trees that surround our home. When my husband was a child in the Pacific Northwest, his neighbors had a couple of grafted cherry trees. One of these had 7 kinds of cherries grafted to it, and he remembers that wonderful tree even now! Having read your article, we might give this a try ourselves. Thank you for sharing this with all of us!!!
To expand upon the subject of apple growing, here is a lecture given at the JC Raulston Arboretum by Dr Mike Parker PHD, titled, Apples from “Seed” to the table.
While it is well over an hour in length there is a lot of good information here. https://youtu.be/1L_n58ElnuM.
Just got back in from taking care of tomatoes. They are loaded, but it looks like we’ve got some cross pollination going on between a beefsteak and Amish Paste. There is a paste type tomato on Beefsteak bushes and beefsteak types on Amish Paste. It is a noob mistake, but I’ll dub it Amish Beefsteak, or Beefy Paste? I’ll also have to settle for trading tomatoes for apples. I do not know the kind of apple they grow around here in NW Montana, but it is fantastic as it has the sweet and strongest taste of apple I’ve ever experienced.
Just a quick note here about tomato cross pollination: A cross only affects the germ (the inside) of the seed the first year or in plain English it’s invisible until you grow out the seed the second year and then the cross will be noticed. The fruits on a crossed plant will all have the traits of the female parent. The next year they will have traits of both parent expressed. So don’t be too hard on your self and say that it’s a “boob mistake” as it’s most likely, based on your description, a “mistake” at the seed production level. I have worked in that type of horticulture before so I’ve seen it before.
Just something I noticed in the photo; if you live in a hot area as I do here in the wild, Wild West, DON’T surround your tree bases with weed plastic or stones. Doing so will ensure the roots get COOKED in the hot sun!
We have many, many wild apple trees in our area of the Northern Great Lakes and we have planted around 6+ of various types since moving here in 2002. Last year was by far the very best apple season we’ve had. No bugs / worms, perfect size / color(s), great juice and flavor with good crisp bite, little dropping of fruit, so this spring before leaves or blossoms sprouted, we trimmed back the wild trees and production has been poor, possible shock? anyways, we’ll see what next season brings.
We have one Transparent tree that produces every year and may be close to 100 years old. It went wild many decades ago, I will trim it way back this fall.
We planted both Red & Golden Delicious variety along with a Dwarf Honeycrisp which is very good but a short keeper so, eat’em when they’re fresh! (before CHRISTmas for sure, if they last in the fruit bowl that long…)
Great article! I have several crabapple trees in my yard.
The first is a semidwarf Dolgo crabapple tree that I bought from a commercial grower. It had a heavy crop (for its size) this year. These are good to eat and make great apple wine. I grind up the whole apples including the seeds, which give the wine a somewhat nutty flavor that is really good.
The second is a Chestnut crabapple that I bought from a commercial grower. It bloomed this year but hasn’t produced any apples yet (it is still a young tree).
The third is a young tree that I grew from the seed of an Evereste crabapple tree. This is a very late Siberian crabapple variety. It has a few apples on it for the first time this year but they are a lot smaller than the tree that the seed came from. I might try to graft another variety on this tree since the apples are so small.
In addition I have two small trees that I grew from the seeds of a Callaway crabapple tree. They are several years away from bearing fruit.
My grandmother had a big old yellow transparent apple tree in her yard when I was a child in the 1960s. They are not very good eating apples but make great apple pies.
Ask your neighbors and non-box store nurseries what works in your area. Some varieties will grow but only produce a little fruit if they are not heavily sprayed. You don’t want to have to rely on a battery of sprays under current circumstances, much less post SHTF.
Get multiple varieties. I have apples ripening between now and November. Also this protects you from unexpected weather or other surprises.
Chickens also love apples and will eat the entire fruit. I feed mine the ones not really suitable to eat. You can also make apple cider vinegar which has many useful applications. I consider apples to be the best fruit to have in the prepper’s orchard.
Thank you so much for your article. It was timely for us. We live in Colorado at 9000+ ft. Our growing zone is 4b. The microclimate of our property is warmer by 5 degrees from our neighbors less than a mile away. We live on a decomposed granite mountaintop and had the southern slopes terraced. Our Honey Crisp lost its pollinator a few years ago, but it is still alive and thriving. We just planted 3 more varieties on Terrace one facing southeast with a hill to the west shading them in the late afternoon.
My question to any of you who know more than we do about apple trees (which I imagine is most of you) is this: We built a huge hoop house infrastructure over the trees using cattle panels (to keep deer and elk out). We plan to greenhouse skin it for winter to allow an extra layer of protection from the cold winters we have here. Then in Spring, roll the fabric back (after all danger of frost…about June!) so as not to over heat the trees. Is this a good idea? Any other advice?
Thanks for taking the time to write this article.