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Fruit & Orchards

Orchard Guidance - Home use

12 years ago

We are looking to purchase some fruit trees this spring to start our home orchard. We would prefer something no taller than 15' - 20' (max. for ease of pruning and harvesting). We would really prefer varieties with disease resistance.

Are soil is the following - Wheeling Silt Loam - Silt Loam to 39 inches and Stratified very gravelly sand to very fine sand from 39 to 60 inches.

We know some of what we want but need some guidance for others. We are wanting varieties for canning, baking, preserving, eating fresh, and maybe some wine making. Here is what we know we want of each variety:

4-6 Apple varieties - Granny Smith, Winesap...?

2-3 Pear - Seckel...?

2-3 Cherry (Tart and Sweet) - Montmorency...?

2-3 Peach - Contender...?

2-3 Plum - Green Gage...?

2 Apricot - ?

American Persimmon - ?

Any input would be great. Also, where would you purchase these varieties(Stark Bros., Miller Nurseries, ACN)?

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Comments (4)

fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
12 years ago
I'll give some input on apricot. Tomcot is widely recommended for dependability and eating quality. Robada is about 10 days later and is the best eating quality I've seen. It's my biggest, prettiest, sweetest, and most flavorful. Both Tomcot and Robada are on the later end on bloom date.

Two others to consider: Early Blush and Harcot. Early Blush because it's very early. Harcot because of many factors and it was bred in Ontario.
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Eroc1_1
Original Author
12 years ago
Thank you very much, fruitnut! I will put them on my list to buy!
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"The truth is that 100 or more years ago they grew apples and didn't spray chemicals" The "real" truth is that although undoubtedly 100 years ago unsprayed fruit existed (it also exists today); the bulk of commercially grown fruit was heavily sprayed. Way farther back than 100 years ago too. The only thing that precluded more spraying wasn't the lack of available spray chemicals or the need for spray, it was the fact that it was far more labor intensive and therefore more costly. Folks also weren't as used to perfect fruit as today, so what would today be perhaps unmarketable was just fine in those days. London Purple and Paris Green were the insecticides of choice and I'd guess lime-sulfur and other mixtures of sulfur were the fungicides of choice. Dormant oils were already well understood and utilized, The aforementioned insecticides were lead arsenates which were probably quite effective at killing everything. The greek poet Homer described the benefits of the "pest averting sulfur". Olpea recently mentioned the use of nicotine sulfate marketed as "Black Leaf 40" which apparently was also quite effective, but was rather indiscriminate as to who or what it poisoned. same as the lead arsenates. No...things weren't really any different 100 years ago other than far more dangerous chemicals were used.
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bdfrase, I made an appointment with the Extension office in St, Mary's County and spoke with Ben. Ben knew a lot about small fruits like berries. But while I was in his office, we made a conference call to the Anne Arundel extension office and spoke with David Myers. Ben told me that David was the fruit tree expert in Maryland. David wrote a Spray Schedule and also a Home Tree Production guide. Both are available for download at the Anne Arundel Extension site. In his guide, he makes a suggestion for fruits that do well in our area. He spoke very highly of Geneva root stock. And spoke about the problems here with Fire Blight and recommended resistant trees. They also spoke very highly of Adams County Nursery as a supplier. I was not able to get all my trees from them, but found their site very interesting. The truth of the matter is I've gotten more to the point and pertinent information from this forum thanks to Scott and Harvestman and others. I'm in the same position as you, living in Southern Maryland and putting in a small home orchard. Please feel free to email me if I can be of any further assistance. I'm pasting the link to Anne Arundel County Extension. Look under bulletins. Here is a link that might be useful: Anne Arundel Co Extension Center
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We used Fiesta Homes here in Las Cruces, NM. They do free delivery and setup but I believe it's within a certain radius... They've been great! The process is another story--it really depends on the land/the financing options/if the land is ready. Our land had well and septic on it which helped a lot in terms of cost. Right now we're realizing we have to pay for a lot of other things like the decks/steps, the grading of the land, gravel, etc that we didn't really think about much (they did give us an allowance for the decks but it's probably going to be higher). So keep that in mind, too. But I will say so far the house looks beautiful and we weren't able to tour the factory so they actually sent us pictures of them building it as they went which was really cool. Let me know if you have any other specific questions and I will do my best to help!
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marknmt
12 years ago
You might find out which pears do well in your area, and if Gold Spice is one of them consider it. It's a small guy, but very tasty.

Pears can be very user friendly if you can avoid fireblight. Mine is on one of the Old Home Farmingdale rootstocks and has done well here in the arid west. It actually cropped the year I planted it, skipped the next year, did well the third, failed to get pollination the forth, and was generous this year.

Pears are good storers and have a number of uses; they aren't as attractive to most insect pests as many fruits; if you care to try your hand at grafting they are among the most cooperative subjects. It's easy to keep pears on OHxF under twelve feet, which is plenty high enough.

I know very little about plums but love a good Italian prune- we eat them fresh, enjoy them canned whole, bake them into tarts, and make preserves with them.

Good luck!

M
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Eroc1_1
Original Author
12 years ago
Thank you, marknmt! We love pears and I will check out Gold Spice and the OHxF rootstock.
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