I have several varieties of fruit trees doing well on my farm. I planted them about 4 years ago and expect my first crop from most of them this year. Your slope is fine. I have a long hill I have mine planted on and it drains our semi-clay soil well. We have a variety of soil on the farm and the trees are in a clay/loam area. As far as where to get your trees. Trees usually range around $12-$20 per bare root plant. Mine were just a 4-5 foot stick with roots. They are lovely little trees now with many limbs and seem very happy. I ordered mine from St. Lawrence Nursery in Potsdam, NY. It is a mom and pop oporation that was started with Potsdam University. They are on the internet so just look them up. You can order now and get your plants and they wont have gone all across the country to get to you. Potsdam is also a very cold area so your plants will also be cold hardy enough for you in NH. Another important thing to keep in mind is that hardiness. They also will replace any plant if it doent take. http://www.sln.potsdam.ny.us/ is the website - I just looked it up. You can also call them and they are super helpful if you are undecided and need some advice. I actually traveled to the nursery to pick up my plants several times. As for dwarf trees - any tree will be the size you want it if you prune it to be so. dwarf varieties dont do as well in the north east as regular rootstock. I found that myself with cherry trees. The first group I purchaced through Stark Bro. and I got a dwarf variety. I think I have 2 out of 12 left. I then purchased 5 good trees from St. Lawrence that are doing wonderful and I got some cherries off of them last year in their 3rd summer on the farm. Pruning them can just keep them at the hight you want and the shape you want. Personally I just try to keep them open enough to keep air flow in the july/aug humid times to prevent fungi problems and I chop them down to about 7ft every spring to keep outward growth and have them short enough to pick the top when they get to full production stage. Think of them as a Bonzi tree just a bit bigger.

I've had good luck with Adams County Nursery and also Cummins Nursery both of which I believe are in New York. I ordered from Cummins this year because ACN was out of what I wanted. The problem I've found with buying from local nurseries and Home Depots is that they never carry the disease resistant trees. Are you ready to be spraying harsh chemicals on your trees every 7-10 days? (I tried playing dumb and not spraying them. It was a very bad idea) If I knew then what I know now, I would have still purchased my non-DR Granny Smith tree knowing about the spraying requirements. But, I would not have planted the other 3 non DR trees. I now have replaced those 3 with disease resistant trees: Liberty, Williams Pride, Enterprise. I've also finally convinced my local nursery to start carrying DR trees this year. They're getting their first batch of Liberty's in soon. We'll see how they sell. The only problem with bare root is the take longer to get established. But, for me, I couldn't get DR trees any other way. Good luck! -Glenn

Starks is a good later source, they ship until May 1 if I recall. Also Raintree. I don't think Cummins has a cooler so its right around the end for them now. I never would buy from Home Depot or Lowes, they sell you a mislabeled variety too often.

Scott

Home Depot doesn't even label their stuff, it just says like "Hardy Apple". They sell Bing cherries here in Wisconsin (good luck with that crop). The trees are also extremely overpriced.

Alright, so thanks for all the good advice, though in the end that way didn't work out for me, as I will be out of town for the next two weeks and couldn't get things in time to get them into the ground before leaving.

So I decided to make do with what I can get locally, and try to make the best out of it. There's always next year and better planning to extend or do over what I started now.

So I got three apple trees between 2 and 3 years old, I think. It'll give me an opportunity to compare the different local sources.

Tree 1, the cheapest one ($19) is from Home Depot, Golden Delicious (Dwarf). What was very noticable when planting is that the tree was apparently just stuck into a pot a short time ago, there were was not much on it in terms of roots at all, and the potting mix fell right off. Because of that, and the kinda screwed-up structure, I pruned that tree heavily:

Golden Delicious before:

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and after pruning:

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I got a $59 Dwarf Honeycrisp tree from a local expensive-ish nursery. However, that tree is 3 if not 4 years old (can't remember now). It had a couple of fruit buds on it, most of which fell victim to my pruning. This tree was in a big pot with an extensive root system, so it must have been grown in this pot for quite some time. I had to untangle / cut lots of circling roots. The shape still isn't that great, the lower branches are at 45 degrees, but I'll keep them and see how it goes. A second, higher, scaffold was started, but it's only short spurs at this time.

Honeycrisp tree before pruning

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I didn't prune it that heavily yet,

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but looking at the close-up, I think I need to prune off most of the leader (down into two-year old wood) in order to get the 2nd scaffold to grow (hopefully). Does that sound right? I'll try to train down the lower branches, though they're not very flexible anymore.

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Finally, I got Liberty, semi-dwarf from another nursery at $29, and one to hopefully give me a break on disease. This one is two-years old, has a well developed lower scaffold made from 3 branches. Root-wise, it was so-so. Apparently it is a vigorous grower, as last season the central leader grew more than 3, if not 4 feet. I headed it quite a bit down to start a 2nd scaffold, and I'm trying to train the 1 scaffold to grow more outwards then up (it's currently kinda curved, leaving the trunk at a good angle but then turning upwards. Should I head the side branches? If so, at what point?

Liberty before pruning:

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That's what it currently looks like (except that I used bamboo stakes to straighten the branches):

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I got no experience with pruning at all, other than what I learned from the internet, so any advice is very welcome.

Also, I already got bugs on the Honeycrisp, some very tiny beetles or something, all black, which are apparently munching on the just opening buds (small holes in the new leaves already). Should I do something about them? If so, what?

Thanks ;)

kaig-
Nice pics!
I've only got 6 trees (only 1 producing apples so far), so I don't claim to know everything. But, from the pics you sent, it looks to me like they are off to a good start. Nice cages around the base. Good job attempting to spread the braches. Nice pruning. Remember to keep the good crotch angles, and get rid of the bad croch angles when you can. For me, I usually take a bit off the new growth on the branches. I somewhere remember someone saying between 1/2 to 2/3 of the new growth to come off. (But, you may want to search before you take me up on this advice). For me, I found if you don't, you get very thin weak branches which don't support the apples. If you don't follow this advice, on your first apples, you'll simply see them really drooping and you'll be nervous about the branch breaking, etc.

I'm glad you were able to find the Disease Resistant liberty tree. At least you bought the other non-DR trees knowing about the spraying requirements. Also, I talked with a friend in Utah who doesn't need to spray his non DR trees as much as I do... only a couple times a season. But, since you are in NH, I think you're going to need to do it as much as I was saying earlier.

Yes, I would do something about the bugs eating your leaves. Could they be aphids? I would try spraying the relatively benign insecticidal soap on them and see if that gets them. If it doesn't, I'd do some more searching on the internet to find out what they are exactly and what it takes to get rid of them.

Hope this helps!
-Glenn

Those little beetles usually don't do a lot of damage. If the trees were older I would say just to forget them, but for the young trees you may want to spray something on them such as Sevin.

I would put about 50-50 odds on whether your "golden delicious" is in fact that. The tree is also obviously a surplus bareroot that got slapped into a pot for a sale.

Scott