Planning My Garden

[DCMomOf3]

We decided to do more of an orchard instead of a garden. Lot's of tree's and vines with shrubs planted in between.

We have 2 variety's of cherries (bing, black), blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, sunflowers, 2 varieties of plums (tree and shrub), 3 variety's of apples (red delicious, crabapple, golden) and three varieties of grapes (white, red, and muscadine). (also antique climbing roses, jasmin and honey****le to bring in the pollinators)

I would love an orchard but i don't want to sacrifice my grassy play area for a lot of trees. How many do you need to produce? I would like 1 or 2 apple and 1 or 2 pear but have no idea how much space I'd need to give them. i am not well versed on trees.LOL

[Cat Herder]

I would love an orchard but i don't want to sacrifice my grassy play area for a lot of trees. How many do you need to produce? I would like 1 or 2 apple and 1 or 2 pear but have no idea how much space I'd need to give them. i am not well versed on trees.LOL

Right now we have a little over an acre dedicated to the trees. I spaced them an average of 15-25ft apart. I planted 7 years ago and all are bearing fruit, now.

The cherry trees require a longer chilling cycle (over 700 hours) than the apple tree's (about 500 hours) so did not produce well last year... I chose Semi-Dwarf Bing, Semi-Dwarf Montmorency and Full-sized Black Tartain (requires 1200 chilling hours ) for the cherry trees so they could pollinate one another. They are all covered in buds as we speak....so fingers crossed we should have enough to stock the freezer this year.

When you pick your seedling trees, the information should be on the tag if not just google your growing zone and the specific species you are interested it. It should also tell you the recommended pollinator. For example. The Fuji apples require Golden Delicious, the Granny Smith's require the Fuji, the Crab Apples grow naturally and don't require anything......blah, blah, blah....