Bought a home on 5 acres last winter. Not a huge property but plenty big enough for my family. When spring came, it was a lot of fun to go around to the different trees scattered in the property, and have the kids help figure out what each one was. We have a large apple, a huge pear tree, a plum that’s putting up lots of new growth, and bought one for the kids called a fruit salad tree, it has peaches, plums, and apricots. Can’t wait for the coming years to see what else we find and add!
We planted 35' in the orchard we planted 30 plus yrs ago. The same family owns it an i can wander, pick and check out any tree i want. The now grandfather is happy to see me when i show up. They still have Melrose which is a favorite cooker in our family. My Dad now 85 went out to get apples a month ago, they knew who he was and they sent a half bushel home with him, no charge. Gpa George hugged me and treats me like one of his family. Yes i help prune in the winter and sometimes I'm a bit hard. But the orchard makes so many apples it's amazing. And yes they they have cider, i get mine straight from the press. The press was made back in the 40s, yes its older by almost 20 years than me.
Just last week I called Nash Nurseries about getting an order of pawpaw seeds (they are not ready yet, December is when they order/ship). I've gotten trees there. Make sure to build shade for pawpaws the first few years as they like to start under a forest canopy, especially if Nash tells you the tree came out of greenhouse stock, they are really fragile when young. If you get seeds you need to grow them in decomposed oak and maple leaves simulating a forest floor.
🎉that’s so fantastic all those wonderful heirloom trees will give your farm a great start. Btw your enthusiasm is infectious. I can’t help but smile watching you. You’re in your happy place.
I love Wolf River apples! They’re huge! My brother in law has a 90 year old orchard on his property. Which is where I got my hands on th. Winesaps are great too! I’m pumped about this project!
I was going to say the same thing!! Power Planter augers absolutely rock! What an awesome project you have going on there!! I am so excited for you! There is something special about becoming the steward of a piece of land that is not so easy to come by anymore ❤️ I bought a 30 acre farm years ago and it took my breath away when I realized just what I had and all I did from day one was begin to dream of all of the preservation that I wanted to do 🥰
Have you considered utilizing a more diverse blend of living mulch besides winter rye and clover? Things like sorghum, alfalfa, flax, and vetch in addition to rye and clover, would go a long way to improving the soil microbiome while still providing you with the overall effect you’re looking for
It's fun to watch YOU grow and learn, you'll be wanting your family out there to learn with you. Thank you for sharing, I can't wait to see you on tractors, (and i mean real tractors not lawn tractors)and mowers, this new adventure will keep you overly and happily busy ❤
How exciting! It's wonderful that you're going to work to preserve heritage varieties of fruit trees. A lot of people don't realize the tremendous differences in taste, texture and uses non factory produce has! Several years ago, I went to an apple tasting event at one of our local nurseries. Blew me away!
So smart to take off the bag! I once grew cucumbers that came in a biodegradable netting. They never grew. When I dug them up, they were root bound in the nets. Now I never leave nets, bags, or pots on.
My family makes apple juice, so I know a thing or two about apple varieties. I hope you have some pippins in there! I have a dream of building out an apple tree with all my favorite varieties grafted together on one tree.
Awesome to see your going for an orchard. big dream of mine to have the space to pull something like that off. probably still 10 years out but its great to see more smaller scale orchards. not enough of em anymore
@MIgardener Love to see you're planting an orchard :) I would love to know what varieties specifically you decided on! Possibly helpful: In order to optimize planting success in fall it is recommended to remove all the remaining leaves (less evaporation/water loss) and tear open the root ball, mixing the container substrate with the soil. Else it might happen that the roots prefer the container substrate and don't spread properly. Also, I heard that there are new health concerns regarding the acetogenine content of PawPaws (neurotoxic) and people shouldn't eat too many
Looks great and I'm sure everything will turn out great. There are also nitrogen fixing trees you can plant in your rows to help out too plus they house beneficial insects for your fruit trees. Good luck guys
This is just so exciting! I'm so happy for you, Luke and MIgardener family! I love that you're going to have such a variety of so many important trees on your property. It's so wonderful to be joining you on this adventure. Much love to you!
Making me jealous of the new orchard. I have 9 trees right now planted 1-2 years ago and am hoping to add 2-4 more next spring. I just have a small 6,000 sf lot so fitting in what I can.
Luke, I have a wolf river apple tree its multi grafted with summner red, courtland, spartan, and wolf river, It was planted about two years ago and just now starting to take off. I live in New Mexico. We’ve already had our first snow of the year surprisingly. Great video sir.
Absolutely brilliant! Yes, as someone just south (Indiana), this year has much less rain than previous years. I hope you're ready for some cooler weather, def snow over the next few days :D.
I'll be interested to see how the Paw Paws grow. I've heard they can be a little finicky about wanting part shade as saplings, but then wanting full sun once they're mature.
I'm on board I love this new big project ! One thing you mentioned i think you have to implement is that second fence b/c once those poles went in the ground ..they're pretty short for deer 😅
Looking at your fence behind you.If you want to keep the deer out that will not work they will just walk through it. Are going to have to put field fence up and they can jump over 6 feet
Now you need to get honey bees to help pollinate those trees. A cider press and a small building to sell fruit, honey and cider plus Migardener memorabilia.
You can straighten a crooked tree I did it for 1 of my pawpaws by pounding in a steel post and using a ratchet strap. I gradually did it over a few months and once I got it done I left it on for a couple of seasons and it's still doing well 5 years later
I noticed too late how to add my niece and nephew's names to the trees. Make sure you add them in the "add order notes" while purchasing. If you can't find the adopt a tree just use the search option and type "adopt" Let's see if we can sell him out before Thanksgiving 🎉
That would only worry me if I were trying to grow out something from seed - since most stone and pome fruits are grafted in order to stay true to type, that's actually not a problem for most orchards. If you wanted to try planting a seed from your apple, pear, or peach tree, you'd get a different taste from each seed-grown sapling no matter what. The thing is, planting apples and pears close to one another can actually increase your yield of both - if they bloom at the same time.
Just a suggestion… a post hole digger on the back of a tractor with a 12” auger saves you a ton of work digging those holes. If you have a tractor, I have the post hole digger and auger you can borrow for your orchard project. I’m only an hour away.
Luke .. you shd do an experiment in fabric pots provided w/ tree. Root Pruning might be beneficial. Plant one as-is to find out for sure? Cd be this fabric material does what they say. Others in past have not, I know. -- xxoo
I like ugly heirloom apples. You see so few varieties at stores these days. I grow a lot of heirloom triploid apples. Ashmead's kernel, mutsu, gravenstein, Arkansas black. Some of my pollinators are great too like snowsweet and sweet 16. The golden russet is awesome. I plant in round ufo's. The cherries get inline ufo's. May I suggest Lazutin Hives. That many fruit trees figured you would have bees.
From the Nash catalog, I would encourage you to grow the American Persimmon, which is a wonderful tree with a sweet fruit that becomes fully ripe when frost time arrives. They don't ship well, so we tend to only see oriental persimmons here in the US. Also, why no stone fruits, like apricots, plums, or cherries? Michigan used to have a great cherry industry, so it would be historic... Also, add American Chestnut, which should be in parallel to existing Shagbark Hickories, with added Black Walnuts and even Northern Pecans as your space allows.
Be sure to cage them with wire. I had everything caged except the Junipers because the deer don't eat them. Yesterday a buck wreaked havoc on one of them sharpening his antlers. :( Even the larger saplings I have wrapped in chicken wire, because the bucks will completely peel the bark. Now I have to see if I can salvage my Juniper. Rats.
Will you be supporting the trees with stakes and anchors so the winds don’t naturally bend them in their early stages of growth? Without support you may have an orchard that leans in the direction of the prevailing winds.
I noticed you did not add any fertilizer, like biotone, when you planted the tree, do fruit trees not need fertilizers? Did you buy two or.more of the same variety trees for pollination purposes? Are there certain trees that shouldn't be plantef near each other? What is the layout for the fruit trees?
You don’t need to fertilize during planting and you don’t want the soil in the hole very different from the future root area. It’s easy enough to wait for the trees to start growing then fertilize.
@@MIgardener That's awesome. We're starting an orchard in the spring. We're only going to have about an acre of trees, but we're following your adventures very closely!
@@alexd9784 The holes he has to dig hardly justify bringing the tractor out. Each one is only 2 or 3 shovelfuls of dirt! It would take more time to drive & position the tractor. Sometimes people need to get out there and just do it, if you ask me!
Luke, you need to go over to Garden Answer and get one of Laura’s augers. That’s way too many holes to dig by hand. Work smarter not harder.
Epic gardening also has two different ones to purchase.
The holes are only 8 inches deep. I don't think they will need an auger.
That's an easy morning where I'm from. The plant root ball arent that big.
Yes!!!
@@Nphen X400. Not my idea of easy work.
Bought a home on 5 acres last winter. Not a huge property but plenty big enough for my family. When spring came, it was a lot of fun to go around to the different trees scattered in the property, and have the kids help figure out what each one was. We have a large apple, a huge pear tree, a plum that’s putting up lots of new growth, and bought one for the kids called a fruit salad tree, it has peaches, plums, and apricots. Can’t wait for the coming years to see what else we find and add!
We planted 35' in the orchard we planted 30 plus yrs ago. The same family owns it an i can wander, pick and check out any tree i want. The now grandfather is happy to see me when i show up. They still have Melrose which is a favorite cooker in our family. My Dad now 85 went out to get apples a month ago, they knew who he was and they sent a half bushel home with him, no charge. Gpa George hugged me and treats me like one of his family. Yes i help prune in the winter and sometimes I'm a bit hard. But the orchard makes so many apples it's amazing. And yes they they have cider, i get mine straight from the press. The press was made back in the 40s, yes its older by almost 20 years than me.
Just last week I called Nash Nurseries about getting an order of pawpaw seeds (they are not ready yet, December is when they order/ship).
I've gotten trees there. Make sure to build shade for pawpaws the first few years as they like to start under a forest canopy, especially if Nash tells you the tree came out of greenhouse stock, they are really fragile when young. If you get seeds you need to grow them in decomposed oak and maple leaves simulating a forest floor.
I can barely wait to see the progress of your farm! Now, I can say that I was there when you planted the first fruit tree!
🎉that’s so fantastic all those wonderful heirloom trees will give your farm a great start. Btw your enthusiasm is infectious. I can’t help but smile watching you. You’re in your happy place.
It's great to see you excited for the future.😊
I am excited to see those trees start producing. How fun!!!
Wow, nice work in sustaining the heirlooms. So excited for what you are doing in this new chapter. Thanks!
So happy for you guys! I can't wait for the cover crop video! I want to understand how to utilize it in my 3' tall raised beds❤
I know I'm geeked as all get out too. Can't wait to see the production.
From an apartment balcony garden to a whole farm. Good job Luke!👍🏾
I love Wolf River apples! They’re huge! My brother in law has a 90 year old orchard on his property. Which is where I got my hands on th. Winesaps are great too! I’m pumped about this project!
Good plan to get the pears. Pears need a lot less "spraying" than apples do to get good fruit.
Just adopted 2 trees. Might of taken a whole whopping 3 minutes to purchase them :) Thank you for the opportunity to be part of this vision.
Can you send me a link to adopt a tree? I cant find it.
Luke, is it possible for us that will be adopting trees for our younger relatives to get their names rather than the purchasers names?
WOW, just seeing you so happy has made my day better!!! God bless y'all and keep growing!
I live in Michigan! Super excited to come visit the farm sometime in the next few years when it’s open to the public.
I was going to say the same thing!! Power Planter augers absolutely rock! What an awesome project you have going on there!! I am so excited for you! There is something special about becoming the steward of a piece of land that is not so easy to come by anymore ❤️ I bought a 30 acre farm years ago and it took my breath away when I realized just what I had and all I did from day one was begin to dream of all of the preservation that I wanted to do 🥰
Ya Hoo .I'm looking forward to seeing all your plans come true.
Have you considered utilizing a more diverse blend of living mulch besides winter rye and clover? Things like sorghum, alfalfa, flax, and vetch in addition to rye and clover, would go a long way to improving the soil microbiome while still providing you with the overall effect you’re looking for
It's fun to watch YOU grow and learn, you'll be wanting your family out there to learn with you. Thank you for sharing, I can't wait to see you on tractors, (and i mean real tractors not lawn tractors)and mowers, this new adventure will keep you overly and happily busy ❤
How exciting! It's wonderful that you're going to work to preserve heritage varieties of fruit trees. A lot of people don't realize the tremendous differences in taste, texture and uses non factory produce has! Several years ago, I went to an apple tasting event at one of our local nurseries. Blew me away!
Whoooot!!! Bring on the trees!!! ❤❤
Paw paws! I live in paw paw Michigan! It's hard to grow them so best of luck!
They are picky, but we will take good care of them.
Beyond special!!! What an awesome video.
Garden Answer has awesome augers you attach to a heavy duty drill.
So smart to take off the bag! I once grew cucumbers that came in a biodegradable netting. They never grew. When I dug them up, they were root bound in the nets. Now I never leave nets, bags, or pots on.
My family makes apple juice, so I know a thing or two about apple varieties. I hope you have some pippins in there! I have a dream of building out an apple tree with all my favorite varieties grafted together on one tree.
We sure do! a lot of pippins!
Awesome to see your going for an orchard. big dream of mine to have the space to pull something like that off. probably still 10 years out but its great to see more smaller scale orchards. not enough of em anymore
This is so exciting Luke! I am so happy for you!
You need one of Laura's (Garden Answer) augers to make short work of all those holes!!!
I once came across some apples that had red streaks through the flesh, they were delicious, and I've only seen them that one time.
Yea ive had one named pink sparkle it was delicious
ive been to Nash to collect chestnuts. They are super nice people.
Oh my! This is wonderful! I live by Nash nurseries! I never knew about them! I will be shopping there for sure! Thank you Luke!!
@MIgardener Love to see you're planting an orchard :) I would love to know what varieties specifically you decided on! Possibly helpful: In order to optimize planting success in fall it is recommended to remove all the remaining leaves (less evaporation/water loss) and tear open the root ball, mixing the container substrate with the soil. Else it might happen that the roots prefer the container substrate and don't spread properly. Also, I heard that there are new health concerns regarding the acetogenine content of PawPaws (neurotoxic) and people shouldn't eat too many
It's amazing that you're growing fruit to be eaten, instead of oil soy and cattle feed corn. ❤❤❤
Looks great and I'm sure everything will turn out great. There are also nitrogen fixing trees you can plant in your rows to help out too plus they house beneficial insects for your fruit trees. Good luck guys
This is just so exciting! I'm so happy for you, Luke and MIgardener family! I love that you're going to have such a variety of so many important trees on your property. It's so wonderful to be joining you on this adventure. Much love to you!
Making me jealous of the new orchard. I have 9 trees right now planted 1-2 years ago and am hoping to add 2-4 more next spring. I just have a small 6,000 sf lot so fitting in what I can.
Luke, I have a wolf river apple tree its multi grafted with summner red, courtland, spartan, and wolf river, It was planted about two years ago and just now starting to take off. I live in New Mexico. We’ve already had our first snow of the year surprisingly. Great video sir.
Absolutely brilliant! Yes, as someone just south (Indiana), this year has much less rain than previous years.
I hope you're ready for some cooler weather, def snow over the next few days :D.
Got mine!
Just had an apple pie made from Wolf River apples. It was AWESOME!
I was so excited to see pawpaws as soon as the trailer door opened! ❤
I'll be interested to see how the Paw Paws grow. I've heard they can be a little finicky about wanting part shade as saplings, but then wanting full sun once they're mature.
I'm on board I love this new big project ! One thing you mentioned i think you have to implement is that second fence b/c once those poles went in the ground ..they're pretty short for deer 😅
I really enjoyed this content. 👍🙏🌻
Looking at your fence behind you.If you want to keep the deer out that will not work they will just walk through it. Are going to have to put field fence up and they can jump over 6 feet
Best wishes for the success of the orchard project.
Now you need to get honey bees to help pollinate those trees. A cider press and a small building to sell fruit, honey and cider plus Migardener memorabilia.
You can straighten a crooked tree I did it for 1 of my pawpaws by pounding in a steel post and using a ratchet strap. I gradually did it over a few months and once I got it done I left it on for a couple of seasons and it's still doing well 5 years later
I noticed too late how to add my niece and nephew's names to the trees. Make sure you add them in the "add order notes" while purchasing.
If you can't find the adopt a tree just use the search option and type "adopt"
Let's see if we can sell him out before Thanksgiving 🎉
Are you worried about cross-pollination between apples or pears or peaches? Especially since they are heirloom varieties. Pretty cool though!
That would only worry me if I were trying to grow out something from seed - since most stone and pome fruits are grafted in order to stay true to type, that's actually not a problem for most orchards. If you wanted to try planting a seed from your apple, pear, or peach tree, you'd get a different taste from each seed-grown sapling no matter what.
The thing is, planting apples and pears close to one another can actually increase your yield of both - if they bloom at the same time.
I'm so excited for you, and I'm even more excited for us Michigander's 😊💝 I Can't wait to see the progress in the next few years.
If we sponsor a tree, & visit your farm, will we have fruit from out tree?
That’s awesome. I’m in North Idaho so probably too cold to grow. I know near Boise there is a man with quite a large orchard of them.
I lived in CdA for a few years. It's so beautiful!
Love your channel, looking forward to seeing your farm grow!
Do you plant all apples next to eachother, or space it like apple/plum/pear/apple? I think that may help disease not spread leaf to leaf.
Just a suggestion… a post hole digger on the back of a tractor with a 12” auger saves you a ton of work digging those holes. If you have a tractor, I have the post hole digger and auger you can borrow for your orchard project. I’m only an hour away.
Amazing!!!❤
Thank you!!
Luke .. you shd do an experiment in fabric pots provided w/ tree. Root Pruning might be beneficial. Plant one as-is to find out for sure? Cd be this fabric material does what they say. Others in past have not, I know. -- xxoo
I like ugly heirloom apples. You see so few varieties at stores these days. I grow a lot of heirloom triploid apples. Ashmead's kernel, mutsu, gravenstein, Arkansas black. Some of my pollinators are great too like snowsweet and sweet 16. The golden russet is awesome. I plant in round ufo's. The cherries get inline ufo's. May I suggest Lazutin Hives. That many fruit trees figured you would have bees.
Sorry if this is a dumb question but what do you mean by "planting in round or inline ufo's"?
No link 4 Nash(ers?) Nursery in descriptuon.
www.nashnurseries.com
From the Nash catalog, I would encourage you to grow the American Persimmon, which is a wonderful tree with a sweet fruit that becomes fully ripe when frost time arrives. They don't ship well, so we tend to only see oriental persimmons here in the US. Also, why no stone fruits, like apricots, plums, or cherries? Michigan used to have a great cherry industry, so it would be historic... Also, add American Chestnut, which should be in parallel to existing Shagbark Hickories, with added Black Walnuts and even Northern Pecans as your space allows.
Looking forward to this series, curious as to how you will deal with leaf diseases such as Apple Scab, and Trellis Rust, Peach leaf curl…
We have paw paws where I live but they're out in the forest and hard to find, I haven't seen one.
Be sure to cage them with wire. I had everything caged except the Junipers because the deer don't eat them. Yesterday a buck wreaked havoc on one of them sharpening his antlers. :( Even the larger saplings I have wrapped in chicken wire, because the bucks will completely peel the bark. Now I have to see if I can salvage my Juniper. Rats.
Will you be supporting the trees with stakes and anchors so the winds don’t naturally bend them in their early stages of growth? Without support you may have an orchard that leans in the direction of the prevailing winds.
Thanks for sharing tree #1 planting! Love watching you - you're such a plant geek (like me :))!
This is great 😊 thanks for sharing .
Wonderful 😊 Great planning process. I cant find where to adopt a tree??
Why not use comfrey and chokeberry bushes for nitrogen fixing?
Do you have plans to eventually sell scion wood for these varieties?
maybe eventually!
Awesome. What about cherries?
Have you given any thought to trying the "food forest" approach, or doing fruit tree guilds?
I love this so much!
Thank you! You have to get a good sized orchard going on your farm too! :)
@MIgardener That's the plan for this year! 🥰
Hope you have a spare forget the jack until you empty water😊
Pawpaw is the only fruit that has been reliably productive in our garden in southern New Jersey.
Crazy dry autumn in Pennsylvania.
Best of luck with your fruit trees!
Wonder if you are going to do figs? or only focused on heirloom
I've heard that every seed in an apple will grow a tree different from each other.
Are you putting cages around the tree or anything around the trunks? Mice and rabbits love to girdle them in the winter.
I noticed you did not add any fertilizer, like biotone, when you planted the tree, do fruit trees not need fertilizers?
Did you buy two or.more of the same variety trees for pollination purposes? Are there certain trees that shouldn't be plantef near each other? What is the layout for the fruit trees?
You don’t need to fertilize during planting and you don’t want the soil in the hole very different from the future root area. It’s easy enough to wait for the trees to start growing then fertilize.
What happened to the other property you brought first that you couldn't develop?
Did you order any nut trees in this order?
Not this one!
I clicked analyze to begin, but it only paused. ;)♥
Do you need to do anything to protect the trees from rabbits?
That is my question, too. We always had to put guards on young trees to keep the critters from barking them.
I assume in Michigan.
For your algorithm
The deer fence doesn't look high enough.
Look at you, the Noah of trees, 2x2.
@MIgardener - Are you going to have bees or is there a bee hive somewhere?
We will have bees!
@@MIgardener That's awesome. We're starting an orchard in the spring. We're only going to have about an acre of trees, but we're following your adventures very closely!
Sorry if i missed it, what rootstock are the trees grafted onto?
He didn't say which particular root stock, only that it's important not to cover it up with dirt.
Do you plan on offering grafts of your heirloom trees for sale sometime in the future? 💚
Probably not since Nash Nursery does stuff like this and does a far better job.
looking for the LINK to NASH Looks Fantastic!!
www.nashnurseries.com
I think a tractor with an auger would have been prudent with all the fencing and tree planting you’re doing .
@@alexd9784 The holes he has to dig hardly justify bringing the tractor out. Each one is only 2 or 3 shovelfuls of dirt! It would take more time to drive & position the tractor. Sometimes people need to get out there and just do it, if you ask me!
Congratulations!🎉 any November pins?
It was already released. On the 13th. But we will have another one in December!
Nash Nurseries
Sucks im stuck in a horrible spot financially. Id love to adopt a tree
I'm not finding Nash Nursery link, am I missing it?
www.nashnurseries.com