Don't wait, plan now, and get working towards the goal. We got our land last summer, but I've had shrubs in pots lying in wait for 2 years, and have my first set of trees coming Friday. Merci Stefan, you have been an inspiration.
The large amount of sucker might also be a good thing if you want a faturally forming and growing fruit grove, but you also need a lot of room for that. I have a cherry just for that purpose. It's a hedge that slowly but surely becomes thicker and wider. It'll be beatiful in 10 years when the whole thing flowers as a massive hedge.
Stefan we love your channel. Our food forest is going great it’s on its 4th year. Adding to it each year we look at what’s going good and plant more of that. We’re in CA 1800 ft. In zone 8b. Kinda red clay soil and fruit trees, berries and grapes do great here. Berries are favorite. I have currants, gooseberry, goji, black, rasp, blue, honeyberrys, autumn olive, sea berry, loganberry, bayberry, hawthorn, even Chilean myrtle, service berry. It’s a joy to go out with the kids and pick. Thanks for the years of content we are tending our plot and grateful for teachers like you. ✌️✌️
Fantastic so glad you got started. The exciting ups and downs will grow with time. Enjoy them both. Sounds like grapes and berries are ‘weeds’, grow more of them.
#1, I like to collect the extra fruit and give them as well as extra vegetables to those in need. Watching you, it is a skill that needs to be taught to others for local sustainability. A teacher/mentor is the most important job there is and when the student can do even more, the teacher has done the best of all.
Love the haircut. It suits you. I wasted time on Macintosh apple tree because I love the apples but they are terrribly plagued by disease, as you have said in the past.
I’ve followed your work now for about 10 years. I love your NAP system. So far I’ve only practiced it on a 1/2 acre suburban lot, in central California. I did these oval swells around the trees and played with the contour of the landscape like you’ve talked about. I only plant “native” grasses, flowers, & shrubs to Cali for drought tolerance. But I absolutely love your work. I’ve since bought a 10 acre property & not having the same luck as previous experience.
Congrats on starting. Half acre will give you all the practice you need, 10 acres is another beast. Each site has its particular characteristics. It takes a while sometimes to get a feel for the land. Adding organic matter and soil life (compost and compost tea) is the quickest way to get a soil working correctly. Keep in touch and persevere.
I had the soil tested in the area I wanted an orchard. The location is a south east hill side. Organic matter is less than 2%. It’s quite clay soil. I’m in the Sierra mountains now. There’s mineral, high in phosphorus, low in calcium. I’m thinking half acre orchard would be more than enough for a family of 4. Plus some for pigs & chickens.
I wish you would add names of trees you have mentioned in writing. Also please give more examples of trees which we should not plant because of the problems you have talked about. For example, which trees tend to get viruses, too many insect problems etc. Thank you.
Unfortunately that kind of thing is incredibly subjective and depends on where you live. I would maybe check your local extension or ask a local farmer to see if they have any information on good varieties for your area.
Ill be mindfull of what my next trees should be for decent maintenance. So far empire apples and prune de mirabelle. Im hoping they'll at least produce a bit and be healthy. Im working on turning my 2 acres into a food forest. Gatineau area in quebec
I absolutely adore my Damson plum. It produces prolifically, but it took years and to get there. It’s on its own rootstock and love the two or three suckers it produces each year so I can share it with friends.
I have been considering will I grow a flowering peach but now I’m not so sure. Love your show. Especially the dandelion one , so many reasons to let them grow. Keep up the good work. Love the show.
my neighbor had a beautiful balsam fir in his yard, provided privacy for both of us, he took it out because it littered too many needles. he replaced it with a lodge pole pine.......
You just never know, though. Had one Bartlett pear tree on a farm in central N.H., supposed to be too tender for the winters there, fully exposed to the North wind. It produced good quality fruit every year. 😄
Southern Oregon here. My 3 yr. old Bartlett Pear blossomed out. Then the whole tree died. WtH? My favorite is the Red Haven Peach. I used to have to take all the leaf curl leaves off for it to survive, and the huge crop would come on. TG. It is the sweetest, most juicy peach ever. Freestone. Like eating liquid sunshine. This year...no Leaf curl. After 3 miserable years. Was it the 4-10-10 bulb food I put on the Crocus beneath it, the manure that tucked it in for Winter, or the egg shells to give it calcium? And I just learned if you have aphids and white flies on your trees and bushes, you have too much Nitrogen. P and K to balance. With heavy Chemtrailing, who knows what's up.
Favorite fruit tree so far is my veterans peach. Hoping it fruits for the first time this year. It’s loaded with baby peaches. Grants Pass it’s the climate baby!
Nice job taking care of the issues. I keep bees at farms that just spray, spray, spray. They have to in order to stay in business. However, your chemtrail comment is stretching it a bit. Only a theory and not proven.
I heard you can plant Amaranth Grain under fruit trees as an insect "trap". They choose to attack the Amaranth instead of the tree. So it's a perfect companion plant to fruit trees. I'm trying that this year.
I've got five native plum + suckers to take out this year. Here are the reasons: I am not a big fan of the fruit. They produce a ton of fruit but all very small and mostly pit and it all is ripe at once. They are difficult to keep trimmed & pruned. They tend to inwardly cross branch. They have tons of suckers. They are harboring mites that causes long tiny finger like growths on the leaves called spindle galls and in severe cases big puffy petiole galls that form instead of fruit. They have outrageously sharp spikes at the end of the growing year on all the branches. The spikes can tear you up worse than a hawthorn. I brought a 2" diameter branch into work to show a colleague and he thought it was cousin to a medieval mace. I have finally had enough.
Hello Stefan, awesome as usual. Would you say those suckers will become vital trees, i did save some from a dying plum tree last year and those rooted and survived the winter. Are those suckers coming off of the ground better than those that grow on a tree? thanks and keep it up. Greetings from central Europe.
The worst mulberry tree sold by catalogs is the Russian Mulberry- the berries are quite tasteless compared to others and may be white in color or black. Both equally tasteless. Also, the tree is extremely fast growing but eventually becomes so top heavy with limbs that the lower trunk splits in half unless you prune the tree back every year or so. The split happens because (about 4 feet off the ground) the trunk of these trees separate into two separate trunks= that's where the split will and does always happen. Once it does, you have a big problem as the tree becomes a hazard and will need to be cut down.
Where I live we have a large problem with the collapse of insect populations. It's dramatic and sad, so we're trying all we can not to hurt them and to actually let them prosper. I like the strategy of planting disease- or insect-resistant varieties, for preventing worms for example. But human tech to scale insect-trappings? I think we need to be sparse with those. Any natural enemy tips to prevent worms? Like: which birds would eat those worms for example? Love the energy, thanks for the info! I would like to hear more about using nature to solve problems for use, make mixed ecosystems, while planting strong competition for those other natural forces that are out there.
My granddad always said every yard should have a Damson Plum. They are such heavy and reliable producers with great flavor for preserves and freezing. He was in Missouri. I've grown them in Michigan and Oregon and agree with him. I've had great results with Damsons, but every location has their own challenges. Too bad the Damsons get diseases in your area. Finding the right variety is so important!
I had Japanese plums that I really liked along with a peach tree and a nectarine tree. All of them eventually got infected with something that produced gnarled black lumps on the branches and trunks and the fruit would get a brownish colored mold(?) on the fruit that ruined them. I tried everything to cure the problem but nothing seemed to work. It just became too much expense to keep trying to treat the trees. Plus, when I actually had a chance to get fruit off the trees, I'd usually lose out to the squirrels and raccoons who'd strip a tree in one raid. The only trees I don't have trouble with in terms of disease are Japanese pears and certain types of Japanese persimmons.
what you described is usually called Canker or black knot. Its the bane of my existence because one of my most favorite peach tree (Sincerest) and Plum (Methley) are both very susceptible to canker and yes there is no cure for canker :(.
About 7 or 8 years ago, I planted a fig tree because I live in a hot climate and knew that my second favorite fruit, cherries, wouldn't do well in my climate. Well, the tree grew quite large, flourished actually, but never really made many figs much to my disappointment. Then this year we had a freak, late, hard freeze, something that hasn't been seen in like 50 years. It really stressed the tree and now it is making more fruit than ever before.
Do you have any videos that discuss the spacing in your orchard and the reasoning behind that spacing? Plant to plant and row to row spacing? Also, appears you have mostly semi-dwarf style trees? Do you have a preference of dwarf vs semi-dwarf if you were to do it all again from scratch? Love the channel. Keep up the great videos!
Gypsum and lots of organic matter. Clay is great, it usually has a good amount of nutrients and excellent water holding capacity, but poor air holding capacity. So breaking it up with the Gypsum and adding lots of air pockets with the organic matter will balance it out. Compost, Leaves, mulch with woodchips, etc.
Hey! I just went through you videos to see of you had any on cherry trees and did not see any. I have a Evans Cherry that is always wormy. I have done lots of reading on what can be done but I find it confusing. Can you make a video?
So excited! Growing fruit trees for the first time this year. Just a small yard in town but most of it is garden beds and plants. I have a couple hardy cherries coming so I really hope they do well 😆💕 unfortunately I don't know what to do about the massive Lilac trees that are spreading every year, didn't know much about growing when we bought our house and though I love the flowers they are really getting out of control and I see massive problems in the near future - they're way too close to our house and just keep spreading.. I would much rather have fruit trees there but the lilacs are now as tall as our house on the entire length of our (rather small) property 😨 - how do I DESTROY THEM ALL !?!?!
Buy nets for the cherry trees, if you want to eat some yourself. I have a cherry tree that produces hundreds of cherries a year, and all i get is a handfull, If I dont net up. The magpies love them. They have allready been checking out the tree this year aswell.
Lilac are a shrub that can get tall. You can cut them all down but t the will come back very healthy. Keep cutting the biggest ones to renew the bush and mow around it to keep them where you want them.
@@StefanSobkowiak Yea but its like death traps everywhere with all the little pokies - I just want to rip them all out! 😭 ..but based on the size of these massive things their root system is probably insane. Ah well at least for now I'll enjoy lots of fruit and veg thanks to all the pollinators they attract 🐝 🌱💕
Bonjour Stephan, comptez-vous retirer le pailli de plastique dans vos plantations agroforestières avant que la végétation le recouvre presque complètement et que vous vous retrouvez pris avec de manière quasi permanente? Je pose la question, car on a déjà fait cette erreur sur nos plantations à la ferme, c'est pourquoi nous utilisons plus de paillis en plastiques dans nos plantations agroforestières. Ça pourrait peut-être faire un bon sujet de vidéo! Bien cordialement.
Bon sujet absolument. On passe les poules dans les allées au moins au 4 ans. Elles adorent gratter tout ce qui est sur le plastique car les insectes sont juste sous ce paillis. Effectivement après 10 ans certains endroits accumulés de matière.
Not sure how it affects fruit trees, but someone told me they put 1 drop off brush killer on suckers that pop up at the base of crepe myrtles to keep them from growing and it works for them.
Thank you for your videos!!! I’m learning so much!!! I noticed the two rows in the video are closer together than your others... what spacing do you suggest between rows?
Depends on a lot of factors. Soil type and fertility, tree species, cultivar vigour, rootstock. Look at what is used in your region and remember when in doubt, space them out.
I don't put a lot of thought into what i plant because my local nursery already does. They usually have a limited selection but its limited for a reason. They only sell the stuff that preforms really well for my area. I have about 60 trees and around a thousand bushes total that i acquired over the years. Almost everything is fruit, nut, and berry producing. I've been super lucky and have great producers. I also live next to a huge forest full of animals. They always keep the ground clean. Around 4 to 7 in the morning there are anywhere from 12 to 30 deer in my yard. The only really problem i had was pear rust. That stuff just keeps coming back.
Hey Stefan, great video! I have a bit of a work around for plants that heavily sucker. If you can heavily mulch your pathways, the grass and weeds become more sparse. This makes it easier to see the suckers. Plus there is the added benefit of the soil taking longer to dry out and nutrients slowly returning. I could see the cost of mulch being a barrier to you though. It might be expensive to get, hay, straw or wood chips though. I live in the city and buddy drops off bags of yard waste, so it is easy for me. Are there reasons that you don't mulch your pathways?
It’s nicer to walk on grass and grass adds solar capture which feeds the soil. Getting enough mulch is always a problem in the country. Yes easy in the city.
@@StefanSobkowiak Good point about the solar capture. Long grass has really deep root systems. I let my grass get long and do a chop and drop. Thank you for answering my question!!
If a fruit tree is producing a ton of suckers, do you think it might be trying to tell you it would rather be a hedge? I mean, do you think that variety might be a good hedgerow candidate?
Sekel pear!!! I have a big mature tree that came with the property. I have a bumper of set fruit for the first time in 3 years and I am now panicking about the care needed to mature them! Oh fruit....
Talking of taste, I've found that good cooking apple trees are getting really rare. Its sad. Everyone seems to want eating apples these days. But I adore the sour cooking apples.
Wish I knew how to top work my Pineapple Pleasure mango tree, it grows beautifully and flowers profusely but never gave me any fruit. My other mango trees have though, Mahachanok, Carrie, Lemon Zest, and Pickering.
@@StefanSobkowiak Was the Damson plum that suckered so much, on it's own rootstock? Or was it grafted onto a known rootstock? If so what rootstock? I'm planning my orchard and want to avoid hundreds of plum suckers, but have heard so many good things about Damson would hate to give up on it, if a good low suckering rootstock would curb the problem. Thanks
Suckers in plums can be a nuisance. I have a native plum thicket and some damson trees, the damsons can't even begin to keep up to the natives. I keep both around simply because I like plum jam and I like the natives canned.
@@StefanSobkowiak I realize now the dog pees near there, I also have free range chickens and I mulched it with Forest leaves. Going to remove the mulch and keep the chickens away. Thank you so much from the Northeast Kingdom.
Very funny good alternative view. An avocado came came up so I let it grow. But it survived so i decided to feed it green leaf mulch from woodbine tree Plus cow and chicken manure and worms. The next spring it took off like a rocket. It's now 5 meters tall and shades the bedroom BUT 10 years later still no fruit. More leaves but never flowers. Other success a prune plum, yes yummy and delicious. But some other evil beast is watching the tree and sometimes in one night the whole harvest disappears. No traces like birds leave traces. Great presentation. You could do a standup comedy on this theme , think about it, who else does that on YT garden videos.
Great idea. For your avocado you may have fed it too well when young and it’s delaying fruiting. Some take 10-12 years but eventually you will have a monster tree producing a half ton of fruit. Better make sure it has a partner nearby for pollination. See my 4 reasons your fruit tree produces no fruit.
This has conflicted me now. I want to plant 2 fruit trees, but now I don't know which ones I shouldn't plant! I was going to do two same trees for pollination, probably apple or pear, but now i worry about disease.
My wife's cousin planted a small group of fruit trees. Nothing is happening after four years. I thought they were planted too close together. Now that I'm looking at them, I'm thinking they might not have a pollinator partner for fruiting. But even his peach tree isn't blooming. Suggestions?
Wait another 1-4 years. Some trees take longer to fruit. Otherwise they may be too much in the shade and until they grow taller to catch more sun will not flower.
@@StefanSobkowiak Five years with the trees in the ground. It's likely a nutritional ground issue. There's plenty of sun because they are in the middle of an open field.
I have an increasingly worsening problem each year with sudden frost that comes sometime in may/april. Almost all of the fruit trees advertised for my climate start flowering and then the frost comes and it only produces a few fruit each year. Pears and cherries are okay but plums are by far the most devastated by this. I tried burning wood in buckets underneath for the whole night last year and i tried covering the trees with protective cloth but the winds get really strong and everything just blows away. Should I just "cut my losses" and cut the plums and plant other stuff or is there some secret for this. I live in slovenia and we have been getting really blasted this year with huge temperature changes and each year it keeps getting worse. Imagine today it was minus2 degrees celsius and during the day it can get as hot as 30!
@@StefanSobkowiak Once the flowers close they are mostly okay but the frost comes right when the plums are in full bloom. They are about 5/8m tall and I dont do much pruning. They are all old trees that my grandfather planted 40/50 years ago, some are also grafts like my pears. I dont prune any of my old trees and they still produce tons of flowers.
Sour cherry suckers are so good, we let them grow along the fence and it covers our garden and produces fruit. So it is excellent as a hedge. Suckers as the natural inhabitants of the garden also tend to be more resistant to diseases. One wild apple turn out to be really good and it was never grafted. It has beautiful red apples every year and has the least worms in the fruits and it also tastes ok.
One problem with fruit trees are the fact that they are not always rated with the right zone. I learned to buy zone 3 trees, instead of zone 4a which is what my area of Minnesota is rated as. My problem one are the choke cherries, they get some sort of fungus, but they are not very common any more, so older people pay premium prices for the choke cherry jam, which they grew up with.
@@StefanSobkowiak I planted my choke cherries in the highest area of my backyard (the front is higher) thinking they were Nankings, the company sent me the wrong ones, which was a blessing since then they had to send me the Nakings for free. This year I'm trying a different fungicide and crossing my fingers. My soil is quite sandy so, wet is not the problem, in my case. I did find out they were more likely to get a fungus than the other cherries.
@@StefanSobkowiak I, of course, only use ORGANIC fungicides. At the start of this century, a small group of us decided to take on Monsanto, on the internet. We started with just four of us, and that is what we did with our free time. Years passed and many joined us, until they had to sent their stuff to Germany. Of course now clueless people import the stuff, but we accomplished what we set out to do. I am also one of those nutcases who started talking about Y2K, long before this century. Nice channel but to be honest, I find you too "full of yourself". Sorry to offend.
Mr Sobkowiak vous avez fait de votre terrain, un véritable paradis ! cest possible de faire la meme chose dans la region de Sherbrooke QC ? peut on aussi avoir des arbres a noix ? dans la permaculture ? vous etes comme l homme qui plantait des arbres ou un Johnny Appleseed :)
Oui parfaitement pour l’Estrie. Les noix peuvent être intégrées au lieu de fruitiers. Ou un fruitier une noix. Le noisetier est excellent dans les trios. Sauf le noyer. Je le garderais à part des fruitiers car à maturité il va tuer les fruitiers. Voir ma vidéo sur : this tree kills trees.
Great video. Very helpful. Thank you. My mother-in-law has just given me 3 fruit tree whips planted in pots. Not great quality and not varieties I would plant. She will expect regular reports. Help! Anybody? What do I do? Here’s a clue: Mother-in-law’s first birthday present to me when I married. A dog. Did I want a dog? BTW I still have a dog 40 years later.
Reason 8 - tree looks too weak in the pot.
Reason 9 - tree needs too much care and does not fit the climate too well.
Great ones.
LOL - the Sucker Cam! I don't even have a garden but I love watching this man talk about plants!!
I love this channel. I never come here without learning something and being entertained. Brilliant.
You're a handsome man who has won my heart with you enthusiasm. I look forward to when I retire and have some land to grow things as you do.
Don't wait, plan now, and get working towards the goal. We got our land last summer, but I've had shrubs in pots lying in wait for 2 years, and have my first set of trees coming Friday. Merci Stefan, you have been an inspiration.
I love your conviction and enthusiasm. Thank you for sharing energy and humour.
this guys tone when speaking is 10/10. Very engaging!
The large amount of sucker might also be a good thing if you want a faturally forming and growing fruit grove, but you also need a lot of room for that.
I have a cherry just for that purpose. It's a hedge that slowly but surely becomes thicker and wider. It'll be beatiful in 10 years when the whole thing flowers as a massive hedge.
Stefan we love your channel. Our food forest is going great it’s on its 4th year. Adding to it each year we look at what’s going good and plant more of that. We’re in CA 1800 ft. In zone 8b. Kinda red clay soil and fruit trees, berries and grapes do great here. Berries are favorite. I have currants, gooseberry, goji, black, rasp, blue, honeyberrys, autumn olive, sea berry, loganberry, bayberry, hawthorn, even Chilean myrtle, service berry. It’s a joy to go out with the kids and pick. Thanks for the years of content we are tending our plot and grateful for teachers like you. ✌️✌️
Fantastic so glad you got started. The exciting ups and downs will grow with time. Enjoy them both. Sounds like grapes and berries are ‘weeds’, grow more of them.
Yessss weeds they are! We are propagating them and dividing them. Thanks again brotha! ✌️✌️
#1, I like to collect the extra fruit and give them as well as extra vegetables to those in need. Watching you, it is a skill that needs to be taught to others for local sustainability. A teacher/mentor is the most important job there is and when the student can do even more, the teacher has done the best of all.
Just this spring I’ve planted (southern U.K.) my 3 first-ever fruit trees: Braeburn and Egremont Russet apples, and a damson.
Love the haircut. It suits you.
I wasted time on Macintosh apple tree because I love the apples but they are terrribly plagued by disease, as you have said in the past.
I’ve followed your work now for about 10 years. I love your NAP system. So far I’ve only practiced it on a 1/2 acre suburban lot, in central California. I did these oval swells around the trees and played with the contour of the landscape like you’ve talked about. I only plant “native” grasses, flowers, & shrubs to Cali for drought tolerance. But I absolutely love your work.
I’ve since bought a 10 acre property & not having the same luck as previous experience.
Congrats on starting. Half acre will give you all the practice you need, 10 acres is another beast. Each site has its particular characteristics. It takes a while sometimes to get a feel for the land. Adding organic matter and soil life (compost and compost tea) is the quickest way to get a soil working correctly. Keep in touch and persevere.
I had the soil tested in the area I wanted an orchard. The location is a south east hill side. Organic matter is less than 2%. It’s quite clay soil. I’m in the Sierra mountains now. There’s mineral, high in phosphorus, low in calcium. I’m thinking half acre orchard would be more than enough for a family of 4. Plus some for pigs & chickens.
I wish you would add names of trees you have mentioned in writing. Also please give more examples of trees which we should not plant because of the problems you have talked about. For example, which trees tend to get viruses, too many insect problems etc. Thank you.
Unfortunately that kind of thing is incredibly subjective and depends on where you live. I would maybe check your local extension or ask a local farmer to see if they have any information on good varieties for your area.
Ill be mindfull of what my next trees should be for decent maintenance. So far empire apples and prune de mirabelle. Im hoping they'll at least produce a bit and be healthy. Im working on turning my 2 acres into a food forest. Gatineau area in quebec
I absolutely adore my Damson plum. It produces prolifically, but it took years and to get there. It’s on its own rootstock and love the two or three suckers it produces each year so I can share it with friends.
Fantastic they can be a great tree especially from seed.
YOU'RE THE BEST DR. SOB !!!!!!!!!! WE LOVE YOUR CHANNEL !!!!!!!!! IT'S THE BEST CANADIAN PERMACULTURE ORCHARD CHANNEL EVER MADE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No Dr here, I turned down my chance. Thanks for the thumbs up. More to come God willing.
I have been considering will I grow a flowering peach but now I’m not so sure. Love your show. Especially the dandelion one , so many reasons to let them grow. Keep up the good work. Love the show.
my neighbor had a beautiful balsam fir in his yard, provided privacy for both of us, he took it out because it littered too many needles. he replaced it with a lodge pole pine.......
Wow! I just found your videos and I greatly appreciate all your insights and knowledge. Thank you so much!! 👍🥰
Stick around , you'll learn so much more. He's a great teacher 👍
Great place to learn about permaculture orchard techniques!!
Welcome aboard. Enjoy the ride.
You just never know, though. Had one Bartlett pear tree on a farm in central N.H., supposed to be too tender for the winters there, fully exposed to the North wind. It produced good quality fruit every year. 😄
You're right, you never know. Nature always wants to show you exceptions.
603. Wolfeboro.
@@IrieB303 Concord. Merrimack River Valley.
@@comesahorseman I was born in Concord.
Have some bartlets in maine and they do well along with kieffer and moon glow
I love this energy
I don’t why, but I was smiling the whole time I watch your video. You made it a lot of fun!
Southern Oregon here. My 3 yr. old Bartlett Pear blossomed out. Then the whole tree died. WtH?
My favorite is the Red Haven Peach. I used to have to take all the leaf curl leaves off for it to survive, and the huge crop would come on. TG. It is the sweetest, most juicy peach ever. Freestone. Like eating liquid sunshine.
This year...no Leaf curl. After 3 miserable years.
Was it the 4-10-10 bulb food I put on the Crocus beneath it, the manure that tucked it in for Winter, or the egg shells to give it calcium?
And I just learned if you have aphids and white flies on your trees and bushes, you have too much Nitrogen. P and K to balance.
With heavy Chemtrailing, who knows what's up.
Liquid sunshine, love it. Curl as a fungal disease is more prevalent in wetter years, especially the conditions in spring. Keep on experimenting.
Favorite fruit tree so far is my veterans peach. Hoping it fruits for the first time this year. It’s loaded with baby peaches. Grants Pass it’s the climate baby!
Nice job taking care of the issues. I keep bees at farms that just spray, spray, spray. They have to in order to stay in business.
However, your chemtrail comment is stretching it a bit. Only a theory and not proven.
@@beebob1279 What is a theory? We get a lot of them. Some take the results to the lab. Not good for man or beast, aquifers or insects.
Brown rot getting most of my peaches unless I pick them early..
Love fruit trees, so glad I found your channel
I heard you can plant Amaranth Grain under fruit trees as an insect "trap". They choose to attack the Amaranth instead of the tree. So it's a perfect companion plant to fruit trees. I'm trying that this year.
Im going to cut down our plum tree this year, and going to like it. Trying some new things.
Conference does very well in the U.K. luckily.
Shame about the fireblight
I've got five native plum + suckers to take out this year. Here are the reasons: I am not a big fan of the fruit. They produce a ton of fruit but all very small and mostly pit and it all is ripe at once. They are difficult to keep trimmed & pruned. They tend to inwardly cross branch. They have tons of suckers. They are harboring mites that causes long tiny finger like growths on the leaves called spindle galls and in severe cases big puffy petiole galls that form instead of fruit. They have outrageously sharp spikes at the end of the growing year on all the branches. The spikes can tear you up worse than a hawthorn. I brought a 2" diameter branch into work to show a colleague and he thought it was cousin to a medieval mace. I have finally had enough.
Damson plums and hybrids (small blue plums) is a nuisance. I planted 2 varieties, and they get EVERYTHING.
I love seeing your Chanal pop up on my playlist. I want an orchard like yours when I grow up. We have 20 trees know need more
That’s a goal. Give yourself an age (when I grow up) or you’ll just keep putting it off.
I love every plant that are easy and give much in return.
Me too. Nothing beats easy.
Hello Stefan, awesome as usual. Would you say those suckers will become vital trees, i did save some from a dying plum tree last year and those rooted and survived the winter. Are those suckers coming off of the ground better than those that grow on a tree? thanks and keep it up. Greetings from central Europe.
Coming off the ground can give more trees (if healthy) those coming off the tree are tree suckers you can remove.
@@StefanSobkowiak thanks Stefan!
I will never be suckered 😅 into planting an Illinois everbearing mulberry tree!!!! Great fun, this man's videos!! He's an awesome teacher!
The worst mulberry tree sold by catalogs is the Russian Mulberry- the berries are quite tasteless compared to others and may be white in color or black. Both equally tasteless. Also, the tree is extremely fast growing but eventually becomes so top heavy with limbs that the lower trunk splits in half unless you prune the tree back every year or so. The split happens because (about 4 feet off the ground) the trunk of these trees separate into two separate trunks= that's where the split will and does always happen. Once it does, you have a big problem as the tree becomes a hazard and will need to be cut down.
I love my illinois mulberry! Its very productive and tasty.
Where I live we have a large problem with the collapse of insect populations. It's dramatic and sad, so we're trying all we can not to hurt them and to actually let them prosper. I like the strategy of planting disease- or insect-resistant varieties, for preventing worms for example. But human tech to scale insect-trappings? I think we need to be sparse with those. Any natural enemy tips to prevent worms? Like: which birds would eat those worms for example?
Love the energy, thanks for the info! I would like to hear more about using nature to solve problems for use, make mixed ecosystems, while planting strong competition for those other natural forces that are out there.
My granddad always said every yard should have a Damson Plum. They are such heavy and reliable producers with great flavor for preserves and freezing. He was in Missouri. I've grown them in Michigan and Oregon and agree with him. I've had great results with Damsons, but every location has their own challenges. Too bad the Damsons get diseases in your area. Finding the right variety is so important!
Damson from seed do best. I got these trees as suckers from someone without knowing they were infected.
I had Japanese plums that I really liked along with a peach tree and a nectarine tree. All of them eventually got infected with something that produced gnarled black lumps on the branches and trunks and the fruit would get a brownish colored mold(?) on the fruit that ruined them. I tried everything to cure the problem but nothing seemed to work.
It just became too much expense to keep trying to treat the trees. Plus, when I actually had a chance to get fruit off the trees, I'd usually lose out to the squirrels and raccoons who'd strip a tree in one raid.
The only trees I don't have trouble with in terms of disease are Japanese pears and certain types of Japanese persimmons.
what you described is usually called Canker or black knot. Its the bane of my existence because one of my most favorite peach tree (Sincerest) and Plum (Methley) are both very susceptible to canker and yes there is no cure for canker :(.
I have a wild plum patch spreading around my well & frost free hydrant. It's so thick & full of thorns! Very dry clay soil.
About 7 or 8 years ago, I planted a fig tree because I live in a hot climate and knew that my second favorite fruit, cherries, wouldn't do well in my climate. Well, the tree grew quite large, flourished actually, but never really made many figs much to my disappointment. Then this year we had a freak, late, hard freeze, something that hasn't been seen in like 50 years. It really stressed the tree and now it is making more fruit than ever before.
Often a sign that the tree is deathly stressed. Just saying, I’ve seen it many times.
Do you have any videos that discuss the spacing in your orchard and the reasoning behind that spacing? Plant to plant and row to row spacing? Also, appears you have mostly semi-dwarf style trees? Do you have a preference of dwarf vs semi-dwarf if you were to do it all again from scratch? Love the channel. Keep up the great videos!
Thanks. Not just on that topic. I discussed spacing in the design of seeded orchard. I use dwarf, semi dwarf and standard.
I always love your videos. I was thinking of planting some fruit trees, but i live in arizona where the ground is mostly clay. WHAT DO I DO?
Just an idea: Dig big, deep and wide holes and fill them with soil and/or compost, and plant the trees in there?
Check out Brad Lancaster’s channel he lives and is transforming Tucson with his desert strategies. Very simple but effective strategies.
Gypsum and lots of organic matter. Clay is great, it usually has a good amount of nutrients and excellent water holding capacity, but poor air holding capacity. So breaking it up with the Gypsum and adding lots of air pockets with the organic matter will balance it out. Compost, Leaves, mulch with woodchips, etc.
Hey! I just went through you videos to see of you had any on cherry trees and did not see any. I have a Evans Cherry that is always wormy. I have done lots of reading on what can be done but I find it confusing. Can you make a video?
So excited! Growing fruit trees for the first time this year. Just a small yard in town but most of it is garden beds and plants. I have a couple hardy cherries coming so I really hope they do well 😆💕
unfortunately I don't know what to do about the massive Lilac trees that are spreading every year, didn't know much about growing when we bought our house and though I love the flowers they are really getting out of control and I see massive problems in the near future - they're way too close to our house and just keep spreading.. I would much rather have fruit trees there but the lilacs are now as tall as our house on the entire length of our (rather small) property 😨 - how do I DESTROY THEM ALL !?!?!
Buy nets for the cherry trees, if you want to eat some yourself. I have a cherry tree that produces hundreds of cherries a year, and all i get is a handfull, If I dont net up.
The magpies love them. They have allready been checking out the tree this year aswell.
@@joggabonkers6380 for us it is the F'ing Robins! I wonder what stewed Robin tastes like...
Now now, plant more to saturate the robins.
Lilac are a shrub that can get tall. You can cut them all down but t the will come back very healthy. Keep cutting the biggest ones to renew the bush and mow around it to keep them where you want them.
@@StefanSobkowiak Yea but its like death traps everywhere with all the little pokies - I just want to rip them all out! 😭 ..but based on the size of these massive things their root system is probably insane. Ah well at least for now I'll enjoy lots of fruit and veg thanks to all the pollinators they attract 🐝 🌱💕
Bonjour Stephan, comptez-vous retirer le pailli de plastique dans vos plantations agroforestières avant que la végétation le recouvre presque complètement et que vous vous retrouvez pris avec de manière quasi permanente? Je pose la question, car on a déjà fait cette erreur sur nos plantations à la ferme, c'est pourquoi nous utilisons plus de paillis en plastiques dans nos plantations agroforestières. Ça pourrait peut-être faire un bon sujet de vidéo! Bien cordialement.
Bon sujet absolument. On passe les poules dans les allées au moins au 4 ans. Elles adorent gratter tout ce qui est sur le plastique car les insectes sont juste sous ce paillis. Effectivement après 10 ans certains endroits accumulés de matière.
Thanks for the info!
Thank you
I love you Stefan, I know nothing about plants. But I take your word as gospel.
my plum trees drive me nuts every year with the sucker issues ....
Inherited some old plums doing this. Do I cut down the suckers or dig them up and replant? Do they affect fruit production?
Not sure how it affects fruit trees, but someone told me they put 1 drop off brush killer on suckers that pop up at the base of crepe myrtles to keep them from growing and it works for them.
Hey make a series on weeds that are actually quite favorable to have pleashe kind sir
Thank you for your videos!!! I’m learning so much!!! I noticed the two rows in the video are closer together than your others... what spacing do you suggest between rows?
Depends on a lot of factors. Soil type and fertility, tree species, cultivar vigour, rootstock. Look at what is used in your region and remember when in doubt, space them out.
Absolutely! Can plant trees too close together, but can’t plant them too far apart. Can always interplant in-between trees with fruit shrubs.
I don't put a lot of thought into what i plant because my local nursery already does. They usually have a limited selection but its limited for a reason. They only sell the stuff that preforms really well for my area. I have about 60 trees and around a thousand bushes total that i acquired over the years. Almost everything is fruit, nut, and berry producing. I've been super lucky and have great producers. I also live next to a huge forest full of animals. They always keep the ground clean. Around 4 to 7 in the morning there are anywhere from 12 to 30 deer in my yard. The only really problem i had was pear rust. That stuff just keeps coming back.
Wow sounds idyllic. Nice job.
Hey Stefan, great video! I have a bit of a work around for plants that heavily sucker. If you can heavily mulch your pathways, the grass and weeds become more sparse. This makes it easier to see the suckers. Plus there is the added benefit of the soil taking longer to dry out and nutrients slowly returning.
I could see the cost of mulch being a barrier to you though. It might be expensive to get, hay, straw or wood chips though. I live in the city and buddy drops off bags of yard waste, so it is easy for me.
Are there reasons that you don't mulch your pathways?
It’s nicer to walk on grass and grass adds solar capture which feeds the soil. Getting enough mulch is always a problem in the country. Yes easy in the city.
@@StefanSobkowiak Good point about the solar capture. Long grass has really deep root systems. I let my grass get long and do a chop and drop. Thank you for answering my question!!
I absolutely aspire to this type of permaculture excellence - flannel and all
Thanks, always enjoyable 😄
nice, new things learn.
you are so awesome, thank you!!!!!! im getting more trees thanks to your knowledge and sharing
Fantastic
Wow thank you so much! Tres apprecier!!!
Love it!!! Thank you so much! You deserve so many more subscribers! Thanks again!
,,,I would love to have the space for sifty apple trees ... :)
🤣
I still like my Rome apples for baking and sour cherries too. Cider trees are extra work but apple butter is great!
Don't get suckered into it...I'm laughing my ass off here!
If a fruit tree is producing a ton of suckers, do you think it might be trying to tell you it would rather be a hedge? I mean, do you think that variety might be a good hedgerow candidate?
Certainly as long as you can mow both sides of the hedge.
Good point. It often means they are improperly planted, have root collar damange or are experiencing some sort of root stress.
I really enjoyed this video. I subscribed. Thanks for your hard work. Great job
Thanks for the sub! enjoy the journey.
Sekel pear!!! I have a big mature tree that came with the property. I have a bumper of set fruit for the first time in 3 years and I am now panicking about the care needed to mature them!
Oh fruit....
Walnut, the outer shell of the nut and leaves make a mess in late autumn, the squirrels also throw the nutshell at people.
I got a goji berry. Now it’s suckered all over. And, the strain I got produces thousands of flowers and only few fruits.🥴
I understand that the leaves are edible. My chooks keep on grazing on my small goji berry plants before they can become established
@@doctorgoody72 send them my way!
Sucker cam. LOL the editing was fantastic.
Yes it is.
Which one was a tank?
Talking of taste, I've found that good cooking apple trees are getting really rare. Its sad. Everyone seems to want eating apples these days. But I adore the sour cooking apples.
What should l plant in my 30 feet by 162 feet lot? Not too up on fruit trees. Thanks for upload with bloopers👍.
Any fruit tree that grows like a weed in your area that gives fruit you love. Disease resistant is a good start.
Stefan, so now what is your favorite pear?
For zone 4?
‘Patten’ not 100% certain it’s z4 Canada but am sure it’s zone 4 US.
are your trees all on their own root stock?
do you worry they're too close together for standard root stock?
Most are grafted.
Wish I knew how to top work my Pineapple Pleasure mango tree, it grows beautifully and flowers profusely but never gave me any fruit. My other mango trees have though, Mahachanok, Carrie, Lemon Zest, and Pickering.
Oh make me drool with your mangos. Look at my overgrafting videos. Same idea for topworking.
@@StefanSobkowiak Yeah mangos are my favorite fruits. :) I'll look up your video on grafting and give it a try.
My favourite also, maybe one day I’ll buy a farm down south so I can grow mangos.
Merci! Love the sucker cam 😂
Hi pretty lady. How are you doing today? And how is the weather over there and that of your family??
Good video. I love it
Thanks for the info
Question what plum tree was that, that produced all of the suckers? Great show.
Damson plum.
@@StefanSobkowiak Was the Damson plum that suckered so much, on it's own rootstock? Or was it grafted onto a known rootstock? If so what rootstock?
I'm planning my orchard and want to avoid hundreds of plum suckers, but have heard so many good things about Damson would hate to give up on it, if a good low suckering rootstock would curb the problem.
Thanks
to many pests and diseases , only fruit i can grow is pears and i have a conference pear trees no diseases great video Stefan
Suckers in plums can be a nuisance. I have a native plum thicket and some damson trees, the damsons can't even begin to keep up to the natives. I keep both around simply because I like plum jam and I like the natives canned.
A thicket is the natural way they grow.
Thx 4 the vid the virus thing was new to me thank you very much
What can you tell me about Papaya trees? Thanks in advance.R
Not much they are tropical. Check out Pete Kanaris’ channel.
Trying to get some apples to grow from seed but they all get fire rot and die a few months later T.T
Hello Stefan! My little 2 yr old Stella cherry has little red aphids (I think). What to do? It had Japanese beetles last year.
Don’t fertilize for one season, see how it changes.
@@StefanSobkowiak I realize now the dog pees near there, I also have free range chickens and I mulched it with Forest leaves. Going to remove the mulch and keep the chickens away. Thank you so much from the Northeast Kingdom.
Very funny good alternative view. An avocado came came up so I let it grow. But it survived so i decided to feed it green leaf mulch from woodbine tree Plus cow and chicken manure and worms. The next spring it took off like a rocket. It's now 5 meters tall and shades the bedroom BUT 10 years later still no fruit. More leaves but never flowers. Other success a prune plum, yes yummy and delicious. But some other evil beast is watching the tree and sometimes in one night the whole harvest disappears. No traces like birds leave traces. Great presentation. You could do a standup comedy on this theme , think about it, who else does that on YT garden videos.
Great idea. For your avocado you may have fed it too well when young and it’s delaying fruiting. Some take 10-12 years but eventually you will have a monster tree producing a half ton of fruit. Better make sure it has a partner nearby for pollination. See my 4 reasons your fruit tree produces no fruit.
this guy can run a farmers market out of his garage
he reminds me of the Scotty Kilmer of fruit trees instead of cars
Did you try peroxid andcwater spray on the fire blight?
Never tried, thanks.
This has conflicted me now. I want to plant 2 fruit trees, but now I don't know which ones I shouldn't plant! I was going to do two same trees for pollination, probably apple or pear, but now i worry about disease.
Just look up disease resistant cultivars of... your preferred fruit. Yes two different cultivars of the same species.
My wife's cousin planted a small group of fruit trees. Nothing is happening after four years. I thought they were planted too close together.
Now that I'm looking at them, I'm thinking they might not have a pollinator partner for fruiting. But even his peach tree isn't blooming.
Suggestions?
Wait another 1-4 years. Some trees take longer to fruit. Otherwise they may be too much in the shade and until they grow taller to catch more sun will not flower.
@@StefanSobkowiak Five years with the trees in the ground. It's likely a nutritional ground issue.
There's plenty of sun because they are in the middle of an open field.
I have an increasingly worsening problem each year with sudden frost that comes sometime in may/april. Almost all of the fruit trees advertised for my climate start flowering and then the frost comes and it only produces a few fruit each year. Pears and cherries are okay but plums are by far the most devastated by this. I tried burning wood in buckets underneath for the whole night last year and i tried covering the trees with protective cloth but the winds get really strong and everything just blows away. Should I just "cut my losses" and cut the plums and plant other stuff or is there some secret for this. I live in slovenia and we have been getting really blasted this year with huge temperature changes and each year it keeps getting worse. Imagine today it was minus2 degrees celsius and during the day it can get as hot as 30!
Interesting since cherries flower earlier than plum. I presume the tallest trees suffer less. Aim to get your trees higher.
@@StefanSobkowiak Once the flowers close they are mostly okay but the frost comes right when the plums are in full bloom. They are about 5/8m tall and I dont do much pruning. They are all old trees that my grandfather planted 40/50 years ago, some are also grafts like my pears. I dont prune any of my old trees and they still produce tons of flowers.
Could you graft your pairs onto another tree to avoid the disease or pick up health benefits from the tree you're grafting to?
With virus once you have it the whole tree has it, grafting will just spread it.
@@StefanSobkowiak From what you're describing it doesn't sound like plants have anti bodies to viruses.
Good question, I think they do but it needs some sleuthing.
Oh nooo... I think I have one of those pear trees! EEEKK! P.s. nice hair cut. Looks great!
Yes winter to summer hair.
Planted a peach near my front door. Not smart 😕
Sour cherry suckers are so good, we let them grow along the fence and it covers our garden and produces fruit. So it is excellent as a hedge. Suckers as the natural inhabitants of the garden also tend to be more resistant to diseases. One wild apple turn out to be really good and it was never grafted. It has beautiful red apples every year and has the least worms in the fruits and it also tastes ok.
Make sure to graft more of that apple tree.
Why do you not figure out why you get fireblight in your conference Pear trees?
Any suggestions?
wait. what do we about the suckers? ...that doesn't leave "nails" poking up in the ground?
Cut them individually or get rid of the tree. We removed a whole row of them.
thank you . so much fun, infectious
One problem with fruit trees are the fact that they are not always rated with the right zone. I learned to buy zone 3 trees, instead of zone 4a which is what my area of Minnesota is rated as. My problem one are the choke cherries, they get some sort of fungus, but they are not very common any more, so older people pay premium prices for the choke cherry jam, which they grew up with.
Great strategy, which I also ascribe to. Chockecherry love drier sites. If too wet they often attract fungal disease.
@@StefanSobkowiak I planted my choke cherries in the highest area of my backyard (the front is higher) thinking they were Nankings, the company sent me the wrong ones, which was a blessing since then they had to send me the Nakings for free. This year I'm trying a different fungicide and crossing my fingers. My soil is quite sandy so, wet is not the problem, in my case. I did find out they were more likely to get a fungus than the other cherries.
Try whey instead of fungicide, more effective long lasting and non toxic.
@@StefanSobkowiak I, of course, only use ORGANIC fungicides. At the start of this century, a small group of us decided to take on Monsanto, on the internet. We started with just four of us, and that is what we did with our free time. Years passed and many joined us, until they had to sent their stuff to Germany. Of course now clueless people import the stuff, but we accomplished what we set out to do. I am also one of those nutcases who started talking about Y2K, long before this century. Nice channel but to be honest, I find you too "full of yourself". Sorry to offend.
Thanks for your crusades.
Mr Sobkowiak
vous avez fait de votre terrain, un véritable paradis !
cest possible de faire la meme chose dans la region de Sherbrooke QC ?
peut on aussi avoir des arbres a noix ? dans la permaculture
?
vous etes comme l homme qui plantait des arbres ou un Johnny Appleseed :)
Ps es-ce-que vrai que les canard de barbarie , peuvent se charger des couleuvres ?
Je sais elles ont leurs utilité les couleuvres mais...
Oui parfaitement pour l’Estrie. Les noix peuvent être intégrées au lieu de fruitiers. Ou un fruitier une noix. Le noisetier est excellent dans les trios. Sauf le noyer. Je le garderais à part des fruitiers car à maturité il va tuer les fruitiers. Voir ma vidéo sur : this tree kills trees.
💛
My Bartlett and Bosc pear trees give me 200 pounds of fruit each every year !
Great video. Very helpful. Thank you. My mother-in-law has just given me 3 fruit tree whips planted in pots. Not great quality and not varieties I would plant. She will expect regular reports. Help! Anybody? What do I do? Here’s a clue: Mother-in-law’s first birthday present to me when I married. A dog. Did I want a dog? BTW I still have a dog 40 years later.
Hahaha. Gotta love them.