The prior message was correct that bushes and vines will give you fruit faster than trees will. Figs and kiwi will grow in your area, but you must make sure to get varieties that are cold hardy. These can be found but you need to Google "Cold Hardy figs" and do a bit of reading before you buy plants. The smaller non-fuzzy Hardy Kiwi can be grown even in zones 3 and 4, but not the bigger fuzzy kiwi. A raised bed with everbearing/day neutral strawberries will give you a really good harvest the second summer after you plant them and some the first summer. You can order bare root strawberry plants in early March that will cost a small fraction of the cost of the potted ones for sale in the summer at retail locations. They will look dead when you get them, but if you read ahead and plant properly, bare root strawberries will probably give you more fruit, faster, for less cost and effort than any other fruit. Raspberries and Blackberries are a close second. Blueberries make a great plant for the yard, but keeping the pH of the soil low enough can be difficult for some people. If your soil has a naturally high calcium level and high pH, blueberries may be eaiser to grow in containers where you control all the soil rather than fighting against a soil base that keeps raising the pH for your plant. Someone asked a similar question in the containers forum. I have copied part of my answer to them regarding a wonderful book that could help you as well as a website for information. The book is published by Rodale Press, one of the oldest and best sources of information on organic garden and sustainable agricultural techniques. Whether you go organic or not, the book as great information about starting a backyard orchard. ....I would recommend one of my favorite books on the subject. You can get it used from one of Amazon's used book dealers for under $6 including shipping. If you want to raise a backyard orchard it is well worth the $6. It is a book that is straightforward and full of information. On Amazon's "Look Inside", you can see the table of contents, a few example pages, and the index. One of the best parts of the book is not shown in the preview. It has a 50 page alphabetic encyclopedia section, which gives almost everything you need to know about a variety of fruits from Apricots to Tayberries. All of the fruits are for small backyard gardens, and all but a few are great for containers. I cannot recommend this book high enough for beginners or experience gardeners who are new to growing fruit. In 160 pages, it has more information about a home orchard, than I have ever seen in one book, even ones many times longer. By Rodale Press ISBN-978-0875966380 "Backyard Fruits and Berries: Everything You Need to Know About Planting and Growing Fruits and Berries in Your Own Backyard" One shortcoming of the book is that it was printed in 1995, so when it recommends specific varieties of plants, it will not have the newest varieties listed. This is not to say that the information is not still valuable. I have a fondness for heirloom varieties that are often some of the best tasting. Many of the advancements with new varieties are not for taste, but for better shipping for commercial growers. Some traits that commercial growers want are the opposite of what a home grower would want. Commercial growers want a plant with fruit that ripens all at once, while home growers often prefer an extended fruiting period. Cornell Guide to Growing Fruit at Home is a great resource for gardeners in New York state and surrounding area. "http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/fruit/index.html" Here is a link that might be useful: Rodale Press's Backyard Fruits and Berries: Everything You Need to Know...

Hi Tony, Beautiful pics. I see your photo of Snowqueen nectarine. Can I safely assume you grew that fruit & did not buy it at the grocery? Seems like a silly question, but... most reports I've seen say that Snowqueen is one the most highly-rated nects for flavor, but is NOT cold hardy beyond Zone-7, which is why I have not attempted growing it on my vacation property in Zone-6b. Are you growing Snowqueen in the ground in Zone-5A Nebraska? Did it survive this past winter? If you are successfully fruiting Snowqueen in Zone-5A, then all bets are off! How old is the tree? From where did you obtain it? Was the fruit richly flavored? Thanks in advance for whatever information you can share. Cheers, -Matt

My honey crisp got off to a slow start, I was thinking of just ripping it out, but after the 3rd year in the ground (so 6yo total) it is doing much better. There are much better trees for home planting. I always suggest that people plant what the organic orchards plant, like red free, Enterprise, Liberty, etc. My experience with pears is get two, one should be a Bartlett. pruning. this can take a lot of reading to get your mind around. most of what you read on the web or see on you tube is just how to clip off branches. You have to understand what you are doing from the point of view of what the plant will become with what you left behind. If you have a "competitive leader" you can cut off in the spring, that may give your HC a prompt to grow more. Otherwise branches getting too long and whipy should be cut back, then when they start to regrow, be sure you steer the new growth the way you want the branch to grow. This prompts growth and makes branches thicker vs length so they can support the fruit when you get that far. Same with the top, get rid of some top. Cut about 12" above the last decent branch and make sure the highest new shoot goes straight up, but no other do. On my HC I used twine and bricks, or tied branch to branch to get branches growing in the right directions and angles. generally going for 45 degrees up, and fill space without competition. I did this most of the summer, typically leaving a branch tied in position for 30 days, but some were stubborn and needed more. Tie loose around the branch to allow for growth and watch for the twine to be sinking into the branch, move a couple inches if you see that. I am very happy with my results and I am expecting fruit for the first time next year on this one. A Harelred I planted at the same time has fruited the last 2 years. oh, one other thing I did on my HC that I am sure helped: I grafted a couple branches of Enterprise onto it so it would have some good foliage when every pest in town was attacking the HC leaves.

I suggest you try this post on the Fruit and Orchards Forum where the fruit tree pruning gurus live. Personally I'd leave the poor things in peace for a year to settle in. Fruit and Orchards Forum