Why/how are the repots of plants grown in gritty mix easier if it's likely you have to repot even more frequently than you would with a standard potting mix? Hi, M - The roots don't get intertwined with the peat fibers & the larger pieces of grit and bark fall easily off of the roots. You usually need to comb the soil out a little, or use a root pick, which is nothing more than a tool shaped like a pencil. Chopsticks work very well. I can repot most plants under 5 gallons in the gritty mix in 30-45 minutes. That includes cleaning the soil from the roots, selectively pruning the roots, preparing the pot/container, adding all new soil, securing the plant in the pot, and getting it soaking in a root stimulant. I usually use the saw (on left) to cut off the bottom 1/3-1/2 of the root mass; then use the root rake, which is next to the saw, to remove most of the soil. You can use a coarse comb or just the root pick, which is what I use to tease old soil particles out of any stubborn pockets formed by the roots. Would using an organic liquid fertilizer (versus soil amendments) eliminate the possible negative effect on 'high air porosity? It would help. You wouldn't be dealing with the soil amendments (like various meals and such) clogging up the soil's macro-pores (which was what I focused on when deciding on how to build the soil) but you still have the organic component of what you're applying for nutrients feeding and increasing populations of the soil organisms that break down the 1/3 organic component of the soil. This is not near as large a consideration, though, as it would be in a peat-based soil, or even the 5:1:1 mix. The reason is that there is still a 2/3 mineral component in the soil that remains unaffected by biotic activity and is enough to sustain porosity, even in the face of a collapsing organic component. The gritty mix is durable enough that it almost never 'wears out'. Plants generally become severely rootbound and in dire need of a full repot long before the gritty mix has seen the end of a useful life. I'm not attempting to change your ideology when I suggest you try the mix in a side-by-side comparison of non-food plantings, using a chemical soluble fertilizer like Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 on half of the plantings, with the other half supplemented with your program of choice. If your set against the idea - that's fine, but I think it would be enlightening.

Thanks fruitnut. It's a big field. We have 40 acres (mostly wooded) and this is the smallest of the cleared fields. One thing I probably wasn't that clear about in the original post was that I'm definitely not trying to fill up the whole field with trees. I just can't take care of that many. So only a portion of the field will be for the fruit trees. I've read that you should avoid planting in the lowest points of fields if you can, so I was looking at the uphill side (roughly green area in new pic). Just wasn't sure how to orient the rows or whether it mattered. My idea was to make the rows run E-W so that they get more southern exposure (assuming the rows are spaced further than the trees within a row). The air drainage thing you mention is interesting. Also, I have most of the apple trees already in a planting bed (I grafted them this year). They're on semi-dwarf rootstock. Thanks again for the response. I'll think on it some more. The big question mark will be getting water to them (there's a small creek running along the southeast side of the field, which seems tempting to try to draw from somehow, but I suspect I'll be carting in water).

Hi Bud, I didn't notice anything looked left out. It is a good video. You did a good job with it. I don't have a mind for cyper-anything, I'm afraid. I can do things if I'm shown, but if I'm away from it for too long, I have to be re-trained. I haven't gotten to where I can post photos on the forums yet. My husband was going to coach me last year, but he got sick and I was taking care of him for months. I teased him about it, telling him some people will do anything to keep from having to show someone how to post photos on the forum. And people tell me it's so easy. Am not good with instructions. But I'll learn. I didn't think about sandy soil being easier to pull nutgrass out of. Of course it would be. I recall one year, I got some nutgrass killer you had to put on with an eyedropper, into the middle of each piece of grass that grew. I tried it and it didn't work on the few I put it on and then I looked and saw how much I'd have to drop the stuff on and went back in the house, thinking they must be crazy to expect someone to use a dropper on a yardfull of that stuff. Wire grass doesn't seem like such a great thing, either. I don't know what that is. I did wonder about why the neighbor's grass was all dead-looking. Don't worry--I'll never tell..... ;) What I have found is that cypress mulch does a number on nutgrass, plus it tries to grow in the mulch and then it's easy to pull up the strings, but that grass also has seeds! It's a real survivor and it can pierce any kind of weed cloth, or plastic mulch you put down, even in layers. I HATE that stuff. Why couldn't a lawn grass be like that? I only recently learned that it's called nutsedge. Didn't know what that was, but saw some nutsedge killer and took a good look and suspected that was the same as nutgrass. One thing about it is it sure would hold soil together, the way it grows. An erosion fighter. noss

I agree with little minnie. The diseases you mention are all associated with humidity and air circulation. I do interplant to increase production in an area, but it is with things that will not increase humidity directly around a plant. For instance I grow lettuce with the tomatoes until the tomatoes are too big and make too much shade. The lettuce is low enough not to increase humidity around the tomato leaves. The thing I have found that helps most with the diseases mentioned is increasing spacing between plants, pruning excess leaves at the bottom of plants, and being sure that there is good air flow around plants, whether in teh high tunnel or outside. Kathy (expecting my first frost next week)