I will be doing the same thing this year. It will be my third mini orchard. It takes about 3 years to get fruit, so start as soon as you can. The trees are gorgeous in bloom.

Home grown fruit is so much better than anything you get from stores. My dad had red and gold delicious apples that were crispy and juicy from the tree - not like those insipid things from the store. I had Gala apples that were aromatic - loved them - this one fell over on the side and we called her Bonzai Gala. My favorite peach was White Champion from Miller Bros; had most of the well known ones from Stark Bros but I liked this one best. This time I am getting fancy 4-in-1 trees from Raintree. Not the best idea - hard to keep some grafts alive - but I am getting too old to have many trees with their huge bounty and just want variety to try. I will get 2 4-in-1 apples, 1 4-in-1 pear, 1 4-1 peach/nectarine, and 1 self pollinating apricot and 2-3 peaches from this or another company - maybe USASeed.

1. Make sure the soil is OK - I had to cope with heavy clay twice; last time I planted in raised beds and on hills.
2. Make sure the trees are self pollinating or are compatible for pollination.
3. Make sure they are in the right zone. I wanted pluots this time but they are not hardy here.
4. Make sure you stake them properly. Last time I did not stake dwarfs and the apples fell over when in fruit.
5. Be prepared for whatever spraying program you need. If you skip some, bugs get them. Spraying is a pain but is required for most fruit. I always wondered if chickens would really take care of the codling moth. The dormant spray seems to be the most important.

This time I will be planting semi dwarfs and will stake them for the first 5 yrs with metal stakes. I am skipping small stone fruits because they got too buggy for me. I had to spray apples a lot, had no problems with pears, peaches, or apricots. Could not get decent fruit from plums or cherries. One year I even had bugs on grapes. Different results from different locations and years.

I am the kind of person that when I get something in my head, I cannot wait.

This might seem crazy, but if I were in your position, I would consider placing an order for some bareroot fruit trees and plant them in the largest container that I could find and move around. Let them get started and set them where you think that they should be.

Then you could push them around in your yard and sit back and watch them grow. If you don't like how it looks, you just push them around again.

I am quite sure that I just bought a tree from a local Nursery that has been in it's pot for at least a year.

Just understand that in the container they would require more water than they would in the ground.

I would suppose that you could plant them this Fall or even next spring when they were dormant.

Don't get me wrong, I am NOT a rich person but I figured that the worst thing that could happen would be that I was out 30 bucks for the tree if it died.

I would get them in the ground now, it takes time for trees to establish. You can always use google satellite view to see your property and its orientation.

Raised beds are good if you have heavy clay soil. If you live in a dry summer climate (like CA) you don't have to worry much about spraying at all. Not sure where you are. You might want to consider pruning the trees low. Even semi-dwarf you want to harvest apples 15 ft high? Just prune it to the height you like.

I live in USDA zone 6B. I will definitely keep that in mind as far as keeping the trees low but I am 6'4 so it helps. I actually tried looking for my property on google and though it has been here for at least 4 years, it has not shown up yet. I ended up using Bing.

Is it easy to move trees from a pot to the ground?

I would make sure there is full sun. If there is part sun, you are in for a heap of trouble and restricted to minor berries. You can always make good soil, given time. You start by asking a tree company to dump a few loads of chips, and in two years you will have good soil. And I would start right away and mix in some 3-yrs-to fruit plants together with your semi-dwarfs. These could be berry bushes, grape vines, peaches, or dwarf apple trees.

You generally want to plant fruit trees before they break dormancy. In my zone 8b, January and February is the ideal time. Dormant trees generally establish themselves better when planted and there's little danger of transplant shock.

>>I've read that I should maybe wait a year so I can evaluate the good and bad of my backyard before I start to finalize a real plan.This is always good advise because it takes about a year or longer until you can process the good from the bad, ....then not making the mistakes when planting too soon.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

I checked out my backyard over the weekend. As the afternoon approaches, my backyard gets more and more shaded starting from the house and branching outward until it is almost completely dark. This is good for the summer heat in the South but not so great for growing fruit.

There's a nice-sized area toward the back part of my property in a corner that is on a slight incline and exposed to the sun for what seems to be most, if not all, of the day. Looks like this may be my pre-determined gardening spot and I will have to do all my landscaping with this in mind.

Also, my yard is surrounded by a 6 foot tall fence but the woods are located right behind it. I know pests, in particular birds and squirrels, will be a problem and I will have to buy nets and such in the coming years when the trees start producing. Do I need to be seriously concerned with other issues with wildlife?