Let’s talk about backyard orchards and high-density fruit tree planting
So here’s the situation: You have a small yard, but you like fresh fruit and you like variety. Conventional wisdom says you have room for two fruit trees, but you are a fruit addict: You like your peaches, nectarines, cherries, plums, apricots, pluots, pears, Asian pears and apples.
Having to leave any one of these out of your yard is like telling a 3-year-old that one of the stuffed animals won’t fit in the bed, and someone’s got to go.
Enter the concept of “high density planting.” The premise is pretty simple — instead of planting two trees, you plant eight, with four in each hole, arranged in a square with saplings spaced about two feet apart. You can almost see the fruit salad.
Choose your varieties with care, and you can enjoy peaches from July through September, as each type ripens in coordinated succession of juicy bliss.
In 2008, my wife and I read about all of this on the Internet and took a field trip to Hodge’s Nursery in Durham.
There it was: four varieties of stone fruits, as happy as can be, in a tight little square. Ten feet away were four more trees.
Over the next month we planted 20 trees: quartets of pluots, plums and cherries, a trio of pears and another of apples, and a pair of nectarines. Some might call it gardener’s folly, but we saw it as a long-term investment in locally grown organic fruit futures.
Four years down the road I can still say that “high density planting” — now referred to as “backyard orchard culture,” is still a good idea, but my list of “if I knew then what I know now’s” is rather lengthy.
Here are the four that rise to the top:
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Your nurseryman is biased. Know straight-up that every nursery thinks this is a good idea, for the very reason that it gets you to buy more trees.
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Don’t fool yourself. Caring for a single, medium-sized fruit tree is easier than caring for four small ones. So really, how much is variety really important to you? Yep, it is important to me too. Read on.
The literature suggests trees be planted 18-24″ apart in groups of three or four. The spiffiest trees in our yard are the two sets of three, planted about 30 inches apart.Also, be sure to allow ample room to pass through and around your clusters of fruit trees, including room to walk between the trees and a fence.
Prune early, prune often. Attend a workshop. Buy a used book. Your goal is to prune hard enough such that your fruit tree produces only 25 percent to 33 percent of its capacity; otherwise it will crowd out its mates.Prune once in the winter when the tree is dormant, and again in May. And then prune here and there whenever you feel like it.
Aphids in Chico like the first spring leaves of young plum trees, so much so that they nearly killed off one of our trees. If you plant four plum trees in one place, then the aphids are even happier.Spraying the aphid-infested leaves with a mix of soapy water and vegetable oil can help a bit, but avoiding plum trees in favor of another fruit might be worth considering.
A relatively new product on the market is “multi-graft” or “fruit salad” trees, which have a single trunk but yield three or more varieties of fruit. The only downside is that you get a limited choice in what varieties are grafted.Or you could try grafting your own. I have heard of hobbyists who graft over a dozen varieties of fruit onto a single trunk, but as far as my yard is concerned, this is a potential folly that will have to wait its turn.
Jeremy Miller lives in Chico and is the program director for Kids and Creeks, a contributor to Edible Shasta-Butte Magazine and maintains the blog “Chico, Sustainable.” He is presently conducting Edison-inspired experiments on avocado pits, where he maintains faith that eventually he can figure out how to get a sprout to live long enough to support his family’s guacamole addiction.
Fruit with Bill & Sheila
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