# Starting an Orchard



## th_Wolverine (Apr 15, 2013)

Hello,

I've been thinking about what kind of homesteading life I want to pursue, and a "you-pick" orchard seems like a decent liveliehood. But I have NO idea what goes into starting and getting one going. Because what bank would provide a lone on a business that MAY start giving profit in 5 years, probably more like 7. 

Anyone have any experience on what goes into starting and maintaining a small 5-6 acre orchard/vineyard?


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## Yldrosie (Jan 28, 2006)

Hope someone jumps in on this, I have the same questions. Did however, invest in a few trees to start. I was flabbergasted at the price of good trees. Hope I live long enough to see the ones I did get, produce.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Buy some each year until the first ones come into production, put that back into the orchard. Plant 8' apart in the row and the rows 8' apart, and put up on wires. Many more trees to the acre but easy to pick and more fruit per acre and they start producing earlier....James


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## Yldrosie (Jan 28, 2006)

Put up on wires? More info please.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/2453/how-to-grow-espalier-apple-trees


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## WJMartin (Nov 2, 2011)

Common Tator has a you-pick orchard and probably has lots of advice. She has a long thread going right now about WWYD with neighbors.


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## Brickhouse1 (Oct 30, 2013)

Google backyard orchard culture. The techniques could help you get started, then as you build equity, get the loan.


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## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

The only experience I've had with pick-your-own orchards is what occurred up the road from me. That party had his trees growing well for quite a few years, then most of them just died. It turned out his orchard had been planted on top of a "hard pan" and the roots could not grow any deeper. (I've never researched this, but it has prompted the placement of my trees.)


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## norcalfarm (Feb 11, 2009)

I don't see how planting on top of hard pan would kill a tree. I guess if it literally had no soil I could see this but I would think that the trees would just never reach full potential. I had lots of trees planted with just a few feet of soil at my old place. They produced and did fine, just didn't get that large. 

Maybe his uphill neighbor's chemicals/herbicides were working their way along the hardpan underground?


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## NickieL (Jun 15, 2007)

When I lived in ca, the hard pan was so bad... We had to rent machinery to break it in order to plant trees. Otherwise the roots didn't go anywhere and the trees would girdle themselves or blow over in the winds as it was so shallow .


norcalfarm said:


> I don't see how planting on top of hard pan would kill a tree. I guess if it literally had no soil I could see this but I would think that the trees would just never reach full potential. I had lots of trees planted with just a few feet of soil at my old place. They produced and did fine, just didn't get that large.
> 
> Maybe his uphill neighbor's chemicals/herbicides were working their way along the hardpan underground?


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Old English gardens had fruit trees. They placed a large flat stone under each tree to limit the size of the tree.


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## Gabriel (Dec 2, 2008)

Research, research, research... before you buy. 

Buy whips, not 2-3 yr old trees. I want to say that the KY department of forestry sells whips in bulk, cheap. Not a tremendous variety, but worth looking into. I lost the link, sorry.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Some apple varieties are resistant to some pests, but I think most orchards require chemical sprays for insects, fungus and diseases. Even if you were going to accept such damage, organic orchards still require timely sprays to get any fruit. 
Currently, the biggest roadblock to organic fruit and vegetable production is the consumers that when questioned say they prefer organic, would pay extra for organic, but when it comes time to buy, select what is cheapest. As with everything, you may know of an exception , but generally this is the case. Getting folks out to pick fruit at a U-Pick is also hit and miss. Most folks are busy and their best intentions give way to what is quickest. Irregular visits by the public eats up your time, while liability insurance eats up your profits.
Growing and maintaining healthy fruit trees takes knowledge, equipment and time. Marketing your fruit takes knowledge, equipment and time. Dealing with strangers, asking endless questions, damaging your trees, showing up any time, at a U-Pick isn't the road to riches some might envision.


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## homstdr74 (Jul 4, 2011)

haypoint has a point, all right. There's too much to apple production to be wasting time, energy and property over a U-Pick operation. Better to leave the U-Pick situation to strawberries or perhaps blueberries.

That aside, we have had bad luck with dwarf apples on wire, or dwarf apples anywhere. They just don't work for us. EMLA 7's, a semi-dwarf, have worked fairly well, but all in all we now prefer either standard rootstock or MM111's, which are about a 3/4 sized rootstock. If you want them smaller than that, we prefer going with the "spur" varieties, which produce more fruit per branch and will limit the size of the tree even further. And, some varieties are just smaller trees, whether they are full sized or not. None of this is about a U-Pick operation, though you could plant a few dozen and pick them yourself, then sell the apples at a stand or in town out of your pickup.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

I cared for a dozen semi-dwarf apple trees for ten years. Never one blossom. Finally they just died off. Climate and soil too hard on dwarfing rootstock. Switched to standard trees and have plenty of apples.


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## homstdr74 (Jul 4, 2011)

haypoint said:


> I cared for a dozen semi-dwarf apple trees for ten years. Never one blossom. Finally they just died off. Climate and soil too hard on dwarfing rootstock. Switched to standard trees and have plenty of apples.


Yup. That's been more or less our experience, also, altho' the MM111 has produced a goodly amount of Arkansas Black and Nova EasyGro for us.


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## semimoonman (Oct 31, 2012)

You might also look into fruits other than apples. Look at a consumer resource like pickyourown.org for what is not in your area. 

In Pennsylvannia, my wife and I drove to the next county to pick tart cherries. It was the only farm in the region, and I'd gotten lucky and called the farmer two weeks before he opened. He sounded a little weird on the phone, told me the date and time they were opening, and said that I should be certain to be there early. We showed up a 8:10 (8 was when they opened), and there were easily 100 cars in the parking lot. By 9:30, when we finished picking, there were still a few people on ladders in the tallest trees, but it was hard to find a cherry without having your feet at least six feet off the ground. 
The guy had serious customer loyalty--didn't advertise at all from what I could see. He'd been doing it for 34 years--the people ahead of us in line had been coming since he opened. He had one of only two cherry orchards in the surrounding six counties, and his was just slightly better situated than the one in our county so that the frosts didn't get the blossoms as often. That's the kind of upick I'd love to have.


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## th_Wolverine (Apr 15, 2013)

semimoonman said:


> You might also look into fruits other than apples. Look at a consumer resource like pickyourown.org for what is not in your area.
> 
> In Pennsylvannia, my wife and I drove to the next county to pick tart cherries. It was the only farm in the region, and I'd gotten lucky and called the farmer two weeks before he opened. He sounded a little weird on the phone, told me the date and time they were opening, and said that I should be certain to be there early. We showed up a 8:10 (8 was when they opened), and there were easily 100 cars in the parking lot. By 9:30, when we finished picking, there were still a few people on ladders in the tallest trees, but it was hard to find a cherry without having your feet at least six feet off the ground.
> The guy had serious customer loyalty--didn't advertise at all from what I could see. He'd been doing it for 34 years--the people ahead of us in line had been coming since he opened. He had one of only two cherry orchards in the surrounding six counties, and his was just slightly better situated than the one in our county so that the frosts didn't get the blossoms as often. That's the kind of upick I'd love to have.



See, that sounds like an AWESOME setup. I think the biggest thing for me is the waiting game; I've worked farms with fruit trees that were not well taken care of and once I got them bearing again I was in the same cherry tree for 2 days picking bucket after bucket. My biggest hiccup is how to get the trees to that point; do I plant 5 or six a year? Invest in like 20-30 all at once? I know what I want the end product to look like, its the between phase and how to get there as quickly and efficiently as possible that is my hangup.


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## DEKE01 (Jul 17, 2013)

I would try to find a nursery in your region so that the plants you get are better adapted to your area. But here's one to look at.

http://www.kuffelcreek.com/appleorder.htm

I haven't tried them but someone else on HT gave them a good recommendation. Apple trees are $10 or $8 if you want more than 100. If you are interested in starting a business, own the land, have water available, then $500 for 50 trees is not much of an investment. Of course, there will be other costs you need to determine and your local extension agent can be a good source to talk to. Don't take their word as gospel, but it is a good place to start. Fencing, if you have lots of wildlife pressure, will probably be a big cost for you.


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