You are an inspiration, thanks for sharing! We have a good start, but once we get our house built we plan to focus more on fruit trees, permaculture and gardening. For now I am hand watering everything. 🌱🏜️
We know just how you feel with this one. The house build was our top priority before moving from the old farm, so by the time we got here we were on a mad dash to get the planting in place! You'll be there before you know it.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm We took a little time off in the spring to get the garden area fenced, made some garden boxes, and gathered top soil from under our big mesquite trees. We got a few things planted, I'm so glad we did! The garden is doing great! Thanks! 💚🏜️
@@affordabledesertliving3487 Hi Don! 🤗 Yes, a long garden hose is a luxury compared to hauling water! 😅 You are doing great! Glad we are starting to get some rain, and it has really cooled off!
Thank you for giving us a ballpark to shoot for in the watering of the fruit trees. This is hard thing to figure out here in the Az desert. Usually the problem with Az gardening and orcharding is not enough water given to the trees and plants. Hopefully we will get enough rains soon to fill up Lake Mead. Its dangerously low, almost to point of effecting electricity production.
Glad you enjoyed this one. AZ is really it's own beast when it comes to irrigation. Hot and dry most of the year, so without rain you still need some irrigation in the Winter. Then of course Summer. June is always the toughest on trees with high heat and no humidity. Fortunately the monsoons have stuck around for a bit and the temps come down with a touch of humidity. The citrus trees have really responded well to that!
I am in Henderson, NV and have to deal with the harsh heat and very high winds this year (sometimes stripping valuable leaves) . So sometimes my trees are in survival mode and hopefully will come out stronger in the end. 💫
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Yes, I have a new garden and when they start with a new beginning next Spring, things will be good. Thank you, and I love your farm. So meticulous, organized and with great aesthetic appeal.
That mulch really does make all the difference. We're hoping over time to be able to reduce the irrigation even further once the trees are more established.
I don't know the depth of the stone bed on this property, but have you ever considered building an underground dam? (known as subsurface dam, or groundwater dam) used for underground damming of rainwater and irrigation, by preventing the lateral flow of water out of your property, it starts an accumulation process that allows the elevation of your watershed. By the volume of irrigation being done, I think it would greatly increase the hydration of your land as a whole. This technique is used in many arid areas, made with a sheet of waterproofing plastic, the cost is very reasonable. the ideal would be the complementation with earth works above the ground to accelerate these saturation
Here in Brazil, its construction is recommended in areas with soils with a depth of 1.5 to 4.5 m, with a gentle slope, between 0.4 and 2.0%, non-saline and sandy to medium texture. Although the technique is used in several other contexts, with different efficiency. Built with a 200 micron thick polyethylene plastic.
Wow, this is the first I've heard of this process. While we do have hard caliche (calcified dirt/rock) a couple of feet down it can be penetrated with an excavator. I'll have to take a look at the process to see what it entails, but may be worth considering. Thank you for the suggestion!
I think there's also a benefit to misting the trees, there seems to be some relation between that and cleansing things such as heavy metals from their systems similar to the way that iron rusts (is oxidized) in a moist environment. It should also give immediate scents from flowers to aid pollination, noticed it recently myself. Miracle that there were a few seconds of bees in your video, if I had known I'd have wrote this before.
I've seen a few things that suggest misting the trees for different reasons. We're considering a foliar feeding regimen during the Spring and Fall months to help spur rapid growth during those growing seasons, so it would follow along the lines your suggesting.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm feel free to send the things that suggest it to my IG if you remember and get a lot of free time one day if they're easily found, I'm always up for good free knowledge. The orchardist Michael Philips should have some really good knowledge on his website and on UA-cam also. Although I might've said that before I don't entirely recall; I've tried to tell so many people after watching one of his videos about the great American Chestnut, although I have a different guess about why they all "disappeared". The man's care was astounding.
You are such an encouragement!! We to live on the edge on nowhere in hot west Tx! We do a similar plan for our fruit trees but have a huge evap cooled greenhouse too. We love it! Bless you both.
Ah yes, West TX can be very similar to what we're experiencing here. A few unique challenges for sure, but channeling that sunlight can produce amazing results. Especially with a cooled greenhouse!!
You guys are really impressive!! I mean wow! We moved to South Texas bush country....dry arid, hot. I'm looking for ideas on how to make a mini paradise on our little two acres. You guys are a wonderful resource. I appreciate this video because you give numbers...merely saying "water sufficiently" is so not helpful! This is good because now I can calculate and grow just what I want and I won't either 1.) kill it before it even gets going or 2.) be shocked and resentful at how much water things need. This is super helpful information. Thank you so much.
Hey Kathy! I'm glad you're enjoying the content and finding it useful. Like you, we have struggled to find good info on how to grow in this type of climate. It's interesting that 25% of the world's population lives in a desert climate, but nearly all of the resources out there are for the other 75%. At least now we can all share what we're doing with formats like this. Imagine if most of our neighbors did a few of these things to regenerate dead soil. The world would be a different place because of it!
You have a well (or more than one) and I don't know your depth to water out in Wittman. But you are being good stewards in knowing how much each plants need to thrive. I went to an irrigation seminar a few weeks ago and the focus was on "best growth and appearance" for ornamental plants. Not going to be sustainable with the current conditions. I have "under watered" my native trees and shrubs, citrus, and heirloom roses for decades and yes, there were those plants that failed. But the strong survive.
Hey there Lesley. You're right on about allowing the trees to undergo the stress of the environment. We also focus on desert adapted root stocks that help give the trees an edge when it comes to drought conditions. The reality is, if we are surviving out here our trees need to be able to do the same!
That's an impressively smaller amount of water than I expected. I was applying 11 gallons per tree 6 days a week & then 22 gallons on day 7. Any less & I'd be able to dig up dry spots at the end of the 103f days. I've also began mixing fertilizer in 100 gallon batches, exciting.
We were keeping our fingers crossed this Summer with that reduction in irrigation. Last year the younger trees just didn't have enough root mass to thrive without water every few days. With over 90 trees on that reduced water regimen we're pretty happy. What fertilizer are you mixing in those batches?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Mostly just weekly synthetics at the moment, miracle-grow. I haven't yet decided on the irrigation setup due to the debris in organic fertilizers. I've been overdosing my luffas with nitrogen but now that we've passed the summer solstice I'm bloom-boosting everything & restricting nitrogen. I can feed 800 PPM/TDS but I hope the plants can take 1200 when days get closer to 84f. Shaded & overheated plants burn at 700 PPM/TDS.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm It does! Every year, since 2016, I revise my watering system, always asking other gardeners for advice, always thinking it could be better…. I have learned so much from you guys, your techniques are unique they make so much sense to me!
Thanks Dwaine, that's actually very useful. There is not much information regarding water quantities for our type of environment. Happy 4th July to you and yours. From us down under.
Hey Kezza! It's always interesting to me that 1/4 of the world's population lives in a desert climate much like ours and yet there just isn't a lot of detailed info on what it takes to successfully grow food here (and there for you guys as well). We here from a lot of your fellow Aussies that are up against similar issues and we're all working our way through it.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Well, shucks, I didn't know that. Does that mean 25 percent of us are stupid , or that 25 percent of us are intelligent? Hmm interesting.
Thank goodness for wells right Duane, lol. I don’t know how insane my water bill would be if I was on city water but I can imagine yours would be astronomical, haha.
Boy do you have that right Jared. All the hoopla over the issues with the CO River and while we're concerned for everyone that depends on it, we don't have the same issue. How deep is your well out your way?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm My well is only 429 feet deep. There are so many vineyards around us the water table has dropped a lot over the last 20 years. Lots of my neighbors less than a mile away with the same depth wells have had to put new wells in that are 800-1000 feet deep. Fortunately I am close to an underground river so I have been fortunate to have plenty of water in my relatively shallow well. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
I can't speak to that specifically, but most of our trees are from a local nurseryman who grows out his own root stocks that are ideal for our soil. I imagine that's why we see the growth and production that we do here on the farm.
You might be able to cut your water requirements further if you plant an overstory of honey mesquite or another desert legume tree. Plus you will get free high quality nitrogen rich mulch out of the affair.
I’m in LA but the San Fernando valley, summers reach 110F. I do not know what I learned here except you saying each tree drinks 30-90 gallons of water a week.
We have similar climates, but from what I recall you guys cool off quite a bit further at night. Mid-summer on most days we don't drop below 100 degrees at any point.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm thats true, it gets down to 85-90F maybe at night, but still thats hotter than most of my plants prefer. So you still only water once a week during the hottest times of the year?
@@lcglazer it depends on how high and dry the temps are. If we start seeing plants get stressed when it's above 115 and very dry, we'll double it and water twice/week.
@@lcglazer for heat stress it's usually droopy leaves that are still green. If they're droopy and yellow it's usually too much water. Dry, crispy leaves are a dead giveaway as well.
You mentioned that you were able to judge that some of the trees needed less water this year. Is that based on leaf appearance or measuring soil moisture at the tree?
Great question Daniel and it's based solely on watching the trees. Usually the fig trees are the ones that start to struggle first. It's not uncommon for them to have leaf drop with the first round of hot weather, but when you see crispy leaves you have a problem. We have not seen any of that this year.
Hey Carolyn. The matter of profit is complicated and we lave that to our CPA, but we market all of our products through our customer email list that folks join through our website. We generally sell through everything we produce, but the production you see here is only one enterprise for the farm. We do consultations, broker beef, have workshops/events and of course have some income from UA-cam. There are a few more events we'll eventually be able hold down the road with more infrastructure planned. As for income, we have been able to replace Lori's income so far which is why she's here full time as of last Summer.
For now we're picking all the fruit as most of the trees are not producing much, if anything. We have a fairly long customer email list that we sell to and eventually will include some U-pick for the production trees we have planted (peaches, apples, mulberries).
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm ... Today is July 3rd 2022 .. it's raining in Sanders Arizona like crazy I hope your getting some .. I made a 50 second video it will post in 10 or more minutes
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm ... You can Get God's attention ... I keep declaring his promises in Luke 6.38 .. give and it shall be given to you in good measure ...... I gave to the 700 club knowing they help the poor around the world and by faith keep asking like in Luke 18 and will not God bring about just to his people who cryout to him day and night he will see that they get justice and fast ......... At first I pleaded for no rain cause my shelter was exposed and I needed to get the roof and walls up
Wow super helpful Duane! I am learning more and more mulch mulch mulch! Sorry if you covered it elsewhere but does your watering system come on at night and then shut off? Thanks!
Mulch is one of the keys to success out here, that's for sure! We do water overnight, so we basically eliminate any chance of evaporation. We use the Hunter ProHC controller, so it's all automated.
I have a question for you, I purchased a contorted mulberry last year from an online nursary which was labeled as a female. It's only about 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide but has had nothing but male flowers so far. I noticed in your video you say they produce both male and female on the same tree, have you noticed newly planted contorted only producing male flowers for the first year or two then putting out fruit? Also if you are interested in propagating mulberries and figs ditch the dirt and go with perlite and a humidity tent. I do green wood cuttings all summer long and get about a 90% Success rate. In winter I do both green and semi hard and get 100%. One day I may do a video but the most important thing is around 80% humidity and temps from 85°f to 110°f don't let them dry out or cool off. Takes about a month to a month and a half for strong enough roots to transplant into soil. I can go into more detail if you want I can email you pictures and my exact method. Oh by the way I'm in mesa az.
Thanks for the notes on the cuttings. We're still trying to figure out whether or not we want to add this to our list of things to accomplish around the farm. If we do, you method sounds like it would be the most viable. As for your contorted, I'm not sure if I mis-spoke, but each tree is either male of female. We have noticed that the contorted flowers do appear much more like male flowers at first, but then they turn into fruit. However, they do not set or hold fruit very easily. We get dozens of catkins, but only a handful of fruit actually makes it to fully ripe. That may be what you're seeing with yours.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I hope so, I was real disappointed when I saw male flowers but hopefully they turn into fruit next spring fingers crossed. As for growing cuttings it is very profitable especially since you will have thousands of tree cuttings that you can strip the leaves off (for feed) of and start new trees with.
Hi neighbors! we are finding out that our drip system is delivering A LOT more water that initially calculated! We have lost 2 trees to root rot this year. both of which were planted in the same exact spot. we have reduced the frequency of watering, and moved the drip emitters and left the hole completely open to "air out" for the rest of the summer. we're probably going to have to replace the dirt with fresh dirt with less organic material. Everything else is surviving the summer. Our compost and homemade mulch are doing a great job keeping the moisture up and soil temperature down! Also we will adjust the watering schedule for the rest of our trees and Vines as we establish our young plants and soil.
Hey there Aaron. Sorry to hear you're losing those trees to rot. We usually say it's pretty hard to over water trees, but as you're seeing it can happen. How often do you have the emitters going off?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm we have been watering for 10 mins 3x a day every other day. Same as our grass. It has been working great for everything else except for that particular spot where we lost 2 RSI peach trees. I pulled them both up as soon as I saw the leaves curling and wilting. I smelt the roots and they had that distinct smell. We do occasionally use our pond water to deep water 1x every 14 days and that may play a factor..
@@AmzBackyardOrchardandVineyard ah ok. One thing about Reid's trees is the rootstocks are designed to be drought tolerant. Which in essence means they can be susceptible to rot assuming they will see some dry soil. That may be the issue.
Hey there. We're just outside of the Phoenix area and our temps are usually about 3-4 degrees cooler than most of the valley. We still get up above 120 from time to time and are regularly in the 110 degree range. Citrus grown on good root stocks along with the techniques we show here should do just fine anywhere in the desert areas of Arizona. It has been one of the core crops of the state for many decades.
I just discovered your channel. We are starting a homestead in the east desert in Utah. Do you deal with excessive wind as well as the hot, desert sun? That is something that we have in abundance while we are building up our windbreaks. It also dries everything out. I was wondering if you had any advice for dealing with wind, or if that's something you have had to deal with?
Hey there Maren! Glad you found the channel and I get the feeling you'll find the content relevant to what you'll be dealing with. We do have regular winds (sometimes quite strong) that come at us from the West/SW of the farm. It's probably hard to pick out in the overhead shots, but we usually double stake our trees with t-posts at the SW and NE corners to allow them to stand up to the wind for their first season or two. The key to helping them survive the wind is giving them the right environment to spread their roots deep and wide as quickly as possible. We also have our fruit trees placed on the East and West sides of the inside area of the property. Over time, those trees will serve as wind blocks for the livestock and ground crops we have planted. Let us know if you have questions as you go and congrats on that new homestead!!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm thank you for the fast response. We are learning A LOT out here in the desert. It is a harsh environment for getting plants established. Do you have any experience with raspberries? That is one that I've been working with and have had some success and many failures. This is a steep learning curve for me. I grew up in Pennsylvania, so the desert is like a foreign country. Our winds come from both the NW and the SE, so we've had to protect from both sides. Do you ever use shade cloth as you are getting things established?
@@marenmacmichael6988 we have attempted raspberries in the past and the do grow here. We haven't been able to get one to produce all that well. I'll link a video we did on our old property a few years ago; ua-cam.com/video/DQIfWUQQmc8/v-deo.html
Thank you for sharing! I have a question...?? How did you know you could reduce the watering from 90 to 60 gallons? What were the signs that alerted this change ?
Great question and we really weren't sure we would be able to swing it. Last year we had to inch the watering up when we hit the hot June weather, because we saw the fig trees starting to get crispy leaves. That really is the only way to know for sure.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm got it! I'm watching everyone pretty closely for crispy leaves. I've built shade structures around a bunch of them for protection. 1st year in the ground and the growth is a bit slow though I think water is good if this was your diagnostics thanks again!
Hey Bruce. We're working towards that. At 2 years in on this property it's a work in progress. Our broilers have always been on pasture as have our layers. When we have pigs they're rotated every other month onto new land. For now we're using them to till in front of plantings. Goats are a new addition and they will eventually be used to establish a silvo pasture on the back of the property.
Hey there Mike. It's comfortable in the morning, but evenings are a bit warm still (over 100 is common until early morning). We also have an early to bed, early to rise schedule with the farm. This time of year we're usually in bed by the time the sun goes down and up by 3.
Great question Vijay. We don't have a specific formula or use soil measurements to determine that. The wood chip mulch helps us regulate both temp and moisture, so we keep an eye on the trees to see if they're struggling. If so, we adjust from there.
Hey Barb! I'm not sure where you're located, but our irrigation guy is George with Sprinkler Dude. He's been helping us since the first round of irrigation on the old farm and he's the only one I trust to help folks with their fruit tree irrigation. I'll link to his website here for you; www.sprinklerdude.com/
Great question Anthony and it really depends. We have not had more than about 1/8" fall in one of these storms we've had come through, so it hasn't been enough to stop the tree irrigation. If we get a drenching storm (standing water around the farm, etc), then we would probably skip that week. That's our long term goal as well. As these establish further and stretch their roots both deeper and wider, they will be able to go longer periods without irrigation and storm water will help even further.
Great question Jack. The primary reason for that was to allow the trees to reach their full, horizontal size potential. For harvesting purposes, we keep the trees shorter than they would typically reach, but we want them as wide as possible to maintain that production. It's definitely not required as they can easily thrive with less space, but we have the space here.
@@jackgeorge6288 the primary orchards (citrus, stone fruit, pome fruit, etc) are on 16' spacing. The exceptions are our large mulberries at the back of the property on 30' spacing as they can quite a bit larger and dwarfing citrus/guavas that are on much smaller spacing (less than 6').
We've seen a few folks in other countries use some of our videos with translations. I would only ask that you reference us in the video, so they know the source.
It's great. But what about the other trees and bushes that are in other parts of your farm. They are totally dry and you are not taking care of them because they are not giving you fruits. I know you have limited water little bit water you can give them.
Hey P.K. All of our trees are on scheduled irrigation, so I'm not sure what you're referring to with our trees being dry. Do you mean the trees in the surrounding desert?
@@p.k.chopra9613 ah, ok. That's our livestock acre and we haven't gotten around to clearing it yet. There are a few mesquite trees in there that do well on their own, but they would do better with a little drink of water.
I recently bought mandarin orange, avocado, and grapefruit trees, will they do fine in the Sonoran deserts sandy/rocky soil? It's very alkali and a ton of salt content, will I be able to get away with just planting directly into this kind of media or would I be better of saving for a truck load of dirt? My avocado started turning brown on the tips and edges, not sure if it was due the the horrible quality of water coming from our well... I've recently switched to city water though.
We plant all of our trees directly into the natural soil with no amendments. The key we've found is how/when you irrigate and a flood type irrigation is best (with plenty of wood chip mulch). I'll link to a video here where we show how we water our trees; ua-cam.com/video/DfDGWElEu7k/v-deo.html Root stocks for citrus do make a HUGE difference. You didn't mention where you purchased your trees, but a tree grafted/grown in Arizona goes a long way to it being able to handle our soil conditions. Usually there is a tag on the tree that shows the nursery it was actually grafted/grown at before going to the local nursery for sale. That being said, most citrus will grow well here either way. It's one of the reasons AZ is known for it's citrus. As for avocado, those are VERY difficult to grow in AZ. The soil and climate are not well suited to growing avocado. A few growers in the city have seen some limited success, but most folks have not. Our summers are too hot and dry and our winters are way too cold.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Thanks for the reply, I'm next to the salton sea in CA, makes total sense as to why my avocado has not been doing well being that we have cold nights and extremely hot days, all the trees were purchased from home depot so I'd assume it's grafted. I will load up on lots of mulch, will a 6 inch top layer provide enough cooling during our 130F periods?
@@billythekid5693 ah, ok you're very similar to us. We usually have anywhere from 6-12+ inches of mulch around the trees at any given time and it does the trick.
Picked up some raw land in yucca AZ area. It looks barren as all heck. No clue how I can grow anything there as I never grew anything in my life as it is...
Congrats on that land. If you peak at our intro video you'll see just how little we had here except for scrub. It takes some planning and effort, but you can definitely turn that raw land around. Is that out near Kingman?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarmHi y'all! Thanks for the reply in the live stream yesterday too. I had gone back to watch from the beginning so I saw the response by the time the stream ended. Yeah it's south of Kingman and south of Yucca. Almost a straight shot south of them, about 10 miles away from the 40fwy. The land is all shrubs and some tall plants, everything looking spiky and wanting to maim haha. Your land is about the closest thing to ours, so it's a good gauge on what's growable and how to tackle it. Next steps is clearing shrubs and grabbing a quote on a well/looking at the water table it sits on. Otherwise hauling water from Yucca is the only option. I'm thinking the cattle panel T post builds + some quick sprouting seeds will be the thing to hold us over while getting everything up to make the land permanently livable. Got a lot of permaculture studying to do !
@@warbyothermeans6732 ah ok, we have a few other viewers who are up your way in Kingman and have talked about the challenges. Water really is the key to the whole process. There's no life without it.
Hey Anthony. We have only irrigated a couple of times since November. If there is any rain at all we skip a week or two and we have had rain every couple of weeks which has kept that to almost nothing. At most we water once or twice/month in the cooler months.
@@dunedainmom most years that's December through February. By March most of the trees have broken dormancy and are flowering and setting fruit, so they need some extra moisture to make sure there are no issues with that.
That's a great question Steve and I'm not really sure. The goal this first year was to reduce the trees on the primary orchards and it looks like that's working just fine with a 30% reduction over 2021. That's over 90 trees that are already doing well with less. At some point I would like to cut this in half again and I think it may be possible. The key is always going to be having at least some moisture form time to time. This past Winter we saw some rainfall every few weeks and we were able to go without water for most of the Winter season.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I live 5 miles west of you. Last winter I too cut back on water for my mature citrus trees and have had TERRIBLE fruit set this spring. I use a moisture meter and start checking daily after the 6th day of watering. The last cycle on my mature citrus was 9 days and I gave them 120 gallons. My 1st year fruit trees went 7 days with 40 gallons. I do not have any soil currently under or around them but am working on that with organic soil drenching and wood chips. I also,have cow peas and sweet potatoes under/around all the young trees. Just sayin……. Love your channel. You and Lauri be safe
Most of the trees we have here are production trees that we intend to sell fruit from, so that extra space will allow the trees to reach their full width at maturity while keeping the canopy low enough for harvest. That being said, you definitely can keep them closer together.
Do you guys know how to convert number of inches of rainfall into gallons of water per week? ive often wondered that when it comes to garden bed plants, and many others including trees also, but if a packet of seeds say 8inches of rain per week how does one figure out in real terms how much water that is?
Hey Brendan. It looks like a couple of folks are helping on this one already, but if you're here in AZ I would suggest you assume you'll need to irrigate to get your plants what they need. Our rainfall is so inconsistent it will be a necessity, especially for fruit trees which need drenching rainfall for it to be effective. Also,, the plants will tell you when they either have too much water or too little. Yellow, droopy leaves is usually too much and dry crispy leaves are too little.
@@y0nd3r it's one of the best in the state. It's filled by the Hassayampa river and current estimates are that the recharge rate is roughly double the discharge. Given it's protected (we have water restrictions in place that we abide by), the hope is it will remain that way. All assuming of course we get some rainfall now and then. Even though we don't see it as often, Wickenburg and the areas to it's North receive them much more regularly which fills the same aquifer.
Hey Gloria. We're on a private well here on the farm. We did an episode on that a while back that I'll link for you here; ua-cam.com/video/mD-ucHVNseE/v-deo.html
Sorry to hear about your nectarine. Are you sure it's iron deficiency? While trees do need iron and there are some that need it more than others, it's uncommon that you'll see that if you're fertilizing them regularly (at lest in our experience). That being said, there are 2 forms of iron that can be applied to plants. The one that we've had other viewers with this problem suggest is a chelated iron supplement designed for applying to plants. I'll link to it here on Amazon for you; amzn.to/3ujU75C
What! My 4 fruit trees are watered 2 a week and only 5 gallons,.. should i water them more? I live in desert too but with mulch i like u taught i notice the ground is more cooler or moist even on 3rd day after watering. I have apple, mulberry,pear,and pomegranate
hey Chica! You didn't mention where you're located and how old those trees are. Smaller trees may need more frequent watering (last year we were watering our trees twice/week). How much water you put on the tree will depend on a few things. The amount of mulch makes a big difference. If it's really deep like ours it will allow you to put more water on the tree that will soak into the chips to help keep the soil moist and cool. Where you water is important also, If you're using a watering ring like we do it can take a LOT of water at one time. The big advantage here is the water will penetrate further into the soil allowing the roots to drive deeper down. If you're watering close to the trunk the tree roots will stay there as opposed to growing out and down. When we check our soil before watering there's usually some moisture in the woodchips still, but it's not saturated like it is immediately after watering.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm lol sorry was exited looking at your farm video. Trees are 2yr old and small still. And yes i made rings to water around the tree. Smaller rings since they are young. Ok didnt know the wood chips would keep top soil moist longer next time i dill dig a bit deaper and see if tree need more water. Maybe thats why non of them gave fruit because all trees dropped its fruit small. 😔 it was a bummer
@@chulasexychica11 if the trees are still small after 2 years it may be that the roots have not had a chance to grow away from the tree and get more established. Woodchips around a larger ring may make the difference to encourage them to grow out and way from the tree. Fingers crossed!
Once the trees get a little more established and soil built I can't wait to see the ground cover get put in and take off.
You'll have to be sure to tune into the vlog tomorrow. We're starting down that road here shortly!
Yeah also cant wait to see the forest look on some trees. I know he likes the trees small for easy picking.
Very interesting. The low water requirements of blackberry surprised me. I'd like to see varieties selected specifically for low water requirements
The Prime Ark Freedom is really the only variety we focus on now. It does really well with a lot of water and still quite good with limited water.
water use per tree info is valuable. I know it is dependent on soil structure and climate details, but this info is really helpful! thanks!
You are dead on with that comment. There are a lot of things that go into the amount of water any given tree will need!
You are an inspiration, thanks for sharing! We have a good start, but once we get our house built we plan to focus more on fruit trees, permaculture and gardening. For now I am hand watering everything. 🌱🏜️
Yep me too Red & April. Lots of trips with my gorilla cart and 2 five gallon buckets ...!
We know just how you feel with this one. The house build was our top priority before moving from the old farm, so by the time we got here we were on a mad dash to get the planting in place! You'll be there before you know it.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm We took a little time off in the spring to get the garden area fenced, made some garden boxes, and gathered top soil from under our big mesquite trees. We got a few things planted, I'm so glad we did! The garden is doing great! Thanks! 💚🏜️
@@affordabledesertliving3487 Hi Don! 🤗 Yes, a long garden hose is a luxury compared to hauling water! 😅 You are doing great! Glad we are starting to get some rain, and it has really cooled off!
Thank you for giving us a ballpark to shoot for in the watering of the fruit trees. This is hard thing to figure out here in the Az desert. Usually the problem with Az gardening and orcharding is not enough water given to the trees and plants. Hopefully we will get enough rains soon to fill up Lake Mead. Its dangerously low, almost to point of effecting electricity production.
Glad you enjoyed this one. AZ is really it's own beast when it comes to irrigation. Hot and dry most of the year, so without rain you still need some irrigation in the Winter. Then of course Summer. June is always the toughest on trees with high heat and no humidity. Fortunately the monsoons have stuck around for a bit and the temps come down with a touch of humidity. The citrus trees have really responded well to that!
I am in Henderson, NV and have to deal with the harsh heat and very high winds this year (sometimes stripping valuable leaves) . So sometimes my trees are in survival mode and hopefully will come out stronger in the end. 💫
We're right there with you Robert. We get whipping winds most days and once the trees are more established they'll hold up much better.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Yes, I have a new garden and when they start with a new beginning next Spring, things will be good. Thank you, and I love your farm. So meticulous, organized and with great aesthetic appeal.
thanks... awesome growth with minimal water. the power of mulching. great!!!!
That mulch really does make all the difference. We're hoping over time to be able to reduce the irrigation even further once the trees are more established.
Greetings from the LooseNatural farm in Andalusia. Watering plants is such an energy drainer. A never ending task.
So true!
I don't know the depth of the stone bed on this property, but have you ever considered building an underground dam? (known as subsurface dam, or groundwater dam) used for underground damming of rainwater and irrigation, by preventing the lateral flow of water out of your property, it starts an accumulation process that allows the elevation of your watershed. By the volume of irrigation being done, I think it would greatly increase the hydration of your land as a whole. This technique is used in many arid areas, made with a sheet of waterproofing plastic, the cost is very reasonable. the ideal would be the complementation with earth works above the ground to accelerate these saturation
Here in Brazil, its construction is recommended in areas with soils with a depth of 1.5 to 4.5 m, with a gentle slope, between 0.4 and 2.0%, non-saline and sandy to medium texture. Although the technique is used in several other contexts, with different efficiency. Built with a 200 micron thick polyethylene plastic.
Wow, this is the first I've heard of this process. While we do have hard caliche (calcified dirt/rock) a couple of feet down it can be penetrated with an excavator. I'll have to take a look at the process to see what it entails, but may be worth considering. Thank you for the suggestion!
4:08 loved this, amazing, my words can't do it justice
Aren't they cool? We have them every day at our watering areas.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm definitely
I think there's also a benefit to misting the trees, there seems to be some relation between that and cleansing things such as heavy metals from their systems similar to the way that iron rusts (is oxidized) in a moist environment. It should also give immediate scents from flowers to aid pollination, noticed it recently myself. Miracle that there were a few seconds of bees in your video, if I had known I'd have wrote this before.
I've seen a few things that suggest misting the trees for different reasons. We're considering a foliar feeding regimen during the Spring and Fall months to help spur rapid growth during those growing seasons, so it would follow along the lines your suggesting.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm feel free to send the things that suggest it to my IG if you remember and get a lot of free time one day if they're easily found, I'm always up for good free knowledge. The orchardist Michael Philips should have some really good knowledge on his website and on UA-cam also. Although I might've said that before I don't entirely recall; I've tried to tell so many people after watching one of his videos about the great American Chestnut, although I have a different guess about why they all "disappeared". The man's care was astounding.
You are such an encouragement!!
We to live on the edge on nowhere in hot west Tx! We do a similar plan for our fruit trees but have a huge evap cooled greenhouse too. We love it! Bless you both.
Ah yes, West TX can be very similar to what we're experiencing here. A few unique challenges for sure, but channeling that sunlight can produce amazing results. Especially with a cooled greenhouse!!
You guys are really impressive!! I mean wow! We moved to South Texas bush country....dry arid, hot. I'm looking for ideas on how to make a mini paradise on our little two acres. You guys are a wonderful resource. I appreciate this video because you give numbers...merely saying "water sufficiently" is so not helpful! This is good because now I can calculate and grow just what I want and I won't either 1.) kill it before it even gets going or 2.) be shocked and resentful at how much water things need. This is super helpful information. Thank you so much.
Hey Kathy! I'm glad you're enjoying the content and finding it useful. Like you, we have struggled to find good info on how to grow in this type of climate. It's interesting that 25% of the world's population lives in a desert climate, but nearly all of the resources out there are for the other 75%. At least now we can all share what we're doing with formats like this. Imagine if most of our neighbors did a few of these things to regenerate dead soil. The world would be a different place because of it!
Another excellent video. I love your jujube tree. It grew jujube now. but your old farm has Sherwood jujube
Glad you enjoyed this one Abid. The Jujube trees are doing fantastic this year. Lots of fruit on the trees!
You have a well (or more than one) and I don't know your depth to water out in Wittman. But you are being good stewards in knowing how much each plants need to thrive. I went to an irrigation seminar a few weeks ago and the focus was on "best growth and appearance" for ornamental plants. Not going to be sustainable with the current conditions. I have "under watered" my native trees and shrubs, citrus, and heirloom roses for decades and yes, there were those plants that failed. But the strong survive.
Hey there Lesley. You're right on about allowing the trees to undergo the stress of the environment. We also focus on desert adapted root stocks that help give the trees an edge when it comes to drought conditions. The reality is, if we are surviving out here our trees need to be able to do the same!
That's an impressively smaller amount of water than I expected. I was applying 11 gallons per tree 6 days a week & then 22 gallons on day 7. Any less & I'd be able to dig up dry spots at the end of the 103f days. I've also began mixing fertilizer in 100 gallon batches, exciting.
We were keeping our fingers crossed this Summer with that reduction in irrigation. Last year the younger trees just didn't have enough root mass to thrive without water every few days. With over 90 trees on that reduced water regimen we're pretty happy. What fertilizer are you mixing in those batches?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Mostly just weekly synthetics at the moment, miracle-grow. I haven't yet decided on the irrigation setup due to the debris in organic fertilizers.
I've been overdosing my luffas with nitrogen but now that we've passed the summer solstice I'm bloom-boosting everything & restricting nitrogen. I can feed 800 PPM/TDS but I hope the plants can take 1200 when days get closer to 84f. Shaded & overheated plants burn at 700 PPM/TDS.
@@SlackerU holy cow, this sounds complicated!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm It's a simple EC meter. Nothing special, just maximizing cell growth.
Thank you for all of your answers!
Sure thing BB. Glad you found this one useful!
Thank you thank you for this video Duane and Laurie, I am so glad you did that!
I thought you would find this one useful. Hopefully it helps!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm
It does!
Every year, since 2016, I revise my watering system, always asking other gardeners for advice, always thinking it could be better….
I have learned so much from you guys, your techniques are unique they make so much sense to me!
Thanks Dwaine, that's actually very useful.
There is not much information regarding water quantities for our type of environment.
Happy 4th July to you and yours.
From us down under.
Hey Kezza! It's always interesting to me that 1/4 of the world's population lives in a desert climate much like ours and yet there just isn't a lot of detailed info on what it takes to successfully grow food here (and there for you guys as well). We here from a lot of your fellow Aussies that are up against similar issues and we're all working our way through it.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Well, shucks, I didn't know that.
Does that mean 25 percent of us are stupid , or that 25 percent of us are intelligent? Hmm interesting.
@@kezzatries I think it could go either way! 😉
Great video. Very helpful.
Glad you enjoyed this one Nancy!
Thank goodness for wells right Duane, lol. I don’t know how insane my water bill would be if I was on city water but I can imagine yours would be astronomical, haha.
Boy do you have that right Jared. All the hoopla over the issues with the CO River and while we're concerned for everyone that depends on it, we don't have the same issue. How deep is your well out your way?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm My well is only 429 feet deep. There are so many vineyards around us the water table has dropped a lot over the last 20 years. Lots of my neighbors less than a mile away with the same depth wells have had to put new wells in that are 800-1000 feet deep. Fortunately I am close to an underground river so I have been fortunate to have plenty of water in my relatively shallow well. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
👍
Glad you enjoyed this one!
Ever checked the soil water or tension distribution? Seems like it would be quite stressful on your roots
I can't speak to that specifically, but most of our trees are from a local nurseryman who grows out his own root stocks that are ideal for our soil. I imagine that's why we see the growth and production that we do here on the farm.
You might be able to cut your water requirements further if you plant an overstory of honey mesquite or another desert legume tree. Plus you will get free high quality nitrogen rich mulch out of the affair.
Mesquite are amazing trees!
I’m in LA but the San Fernando valley, summers reach 110F. I do not know what I learned here except you saying each tree drinks 30-90 gallons of water a week.
We have similar climates, but from what I recall you guys cool off quite a bit further at night. Mid-summer on most days we don't drop below 100 degrees at any point.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm thats true, it gets down to 85-90F maybe at night, but still thats hotter than most of my plants prefer. So you still only water once a week during the hottest times of the year?
@@lcglazer it depends on how high and dry the temps are. If we start seeing plants get stressed when it's above 115 and very dry, we'll double it and water twice/week.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm what does stressed look like?
@@lcglazer for heat stress it's usually droopy leaves that are still green. If they're droopy and yellow it's usually too much water. Dry, crispy leaves are a dead giveaway as well.
You mentioned that you were able to judge that some of the trees needed less water this year. Is that based on leaf appearance or measuring soil moisture at the tree?
Great question Daniel and it's based solely on watching the trees. Usually the fig trees are the ones that start to struggle first. It's not uncommon for them to have leaf drop with the first round of hot weather, but when you see crispy leaves you have a problem. We have not seen any of that this year.
Are you turning a profit on this farm? Where/how do you market your product?
Hey Carolyn. The matter of profit is complicated and we lave that to our CPA, but we market all of our products through our customer email list that folks join through our website. We generally sell through everything we produce, but the production you see here is only one enterprise for the farm. We do consultations, broker beef, have workshops/events and of course have some income from UA-cam. There are a few more events we'll eventually be able hold down the road with more infrastructure planned. As for income, we have been able to replace Lori's income so far which is why she's here full time as of last Summer.
Good job ... And who picks all that fruit .. and who buys it 🧑🌾
For now we're picking all the fruit as most of the trees are not producing much, if anything. We have a fairly long customer email list that we sell to and eventually will include some U-pick for the production trees we have planted (peaches, apples, mulberries).
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm ... Today is July 3rd 2022 .. it's raining in Sanders Arizona like crazy I hope your getting some .. I made a 50 second video it will post in 10 or more minutes
@@Jesusiscoming24 oh man, just a little jealous. That looks like it was a nice drenching rain!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm ... You can Get God's attention ... I keep declaring his promises in Luke 6.38 .. give and it shall be given to you in good measure ...... I gave to the 700 club knowing they help the poor around the world and by faith keep asking like in Luke 18 and will not God bring about just to his people who cryout to him day and night he will see that they get justice and fast ......... At first I pleaded for no rain cause my shelter was exposed and I needed to get the roof and walls up
@@Jesusiscoming24 God's perfect timing...as usual! God Bless you brother.
Wow super helpful Duane! I am learning more and more mulch mulch mulch! Sorry if you covered it elsewhere but does your watering system come on at night and then shut off? Thanks!
Mulch is one of the keys to success out here, that's for sure! We do water overnight, so we basically eliminate any chance of evaporation. We use the Hunter ProHC controller, so it's all automated.
Where are you getting your mulch from, everything looks great. I am in Cave Creek and have vegetables,citrus, and now figs. Thank you for the info.
Hey Randy! We get most of those chips through arborists we've found through Chip Drop. It's an online resource that links gardeners to arborists.
Can’t wait to see the microclimate under their canopy
Hey Chet!! We're looking forward to it as well. Not much in the way of canopy yet, but there are a few shady spots in the morning evening already!
I have a question for you, I purchased a contorted mulberry last year from an online nursary which was labeled as a female. It's only about 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide but has had nothing but male flowers so far. I noticed in your video you say they produce both male and female on the same tree, have you noticed newly planted contorted only producing male flowers for the first year or two then putting out fruit?
Also if you are interested in propagating mulberries and figs ditch the dirt and go with perlite and a humidity tent. I do green wood cuttings all summer long and get about a 90% Success rate. In winter I do both green and semi hard and get 100%. One day I may do a video but the most important thing is around 80% humidity and temps from 85°f to 110°f don't let them dry out or cool off. Takes about a month to a month and a half for strong enough roots to transplant into soil. I can go into more detail if you want I can email you pictures and my exact method. Oh by the way I'm in mesa az.
Thanks for the notes on the cuttings. We're still trying to figure out whether or not we want to add this to our list of things to accomplish around the farm. If we do, you method sounds like it would be the most viable. As for your contorted, I'm not sure if I mis-spoke, but each tree is either male of female. We have noticed that the contorted flowers do appear much more like male flowers at first, but then they turn into fruit. However, they do not set or hold fruit very easily. We get dozens of catkins, but only a handful of fruit actually makes it to fully ripe. That may be what you're seeing with yours.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I hope so, I was real disappointed when I saw male flowers but hopefully they turn into fruit next spring fingers crossed.
As for growing cuttings it is very profitable especially since you will have thousands of tree cuttings that you can strip the leaves off (for feed) of and start new trees with.
Hi neighbors! we are finding out that our drip system is delivering A LOT more water that initially calculated! We have lost 2 trees to root rot this year. both of which were planted in the same exact spot. we have reduced the frequency of watering, and moved the drip emitters and left the hole completely open to "air out" for the rest of the summer. we're probably going to have to replace the dirt with fresh dirt with less organic material. Everything else is surviving the summer. Our compost and homemade mulch are doing a great job keeping the moisture up and soil temperature down! Also we will adjust the watering schedule for the rest of our trees and Vines as we establish our young plants and soil.
Hey there Aaron. Sorry to hear you're losing those trees to rot. We usually say it's pretty hard to over water trees, but as you're seeing it can happen. How often do you have the emitters going off?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm we have been watering for 10 mins 3x a day every other day. Same as our grass. It has been working great for everything else except for that particular spot where we lost 2 RSI peach trees. I pulled them both up as soon as I saw the leaves curling and wilting. I smelt the roots and they had that distinct smell. We do occasionally use our pond water to deep water 1x every 14 days and that may play a factor..
@@AmzBackyardOrchardandVineyard ah ok. One thing about Reid's trees is the rootstocks are designed to be drought tolerant. Which in essence means they can be susceptible to rot assuming they will see some dry soil. That may be the issue.
my citrus gets badly sunburned. Your farm is not as hot as Phoenix?
Hey there. We're just outside of the Phoenix area and our temps are usually about 3-4 degrees cooler than most of the valley. We still get up above 120 from time to time and are regularly in the 110 degree range. Citrus grown on good root stocks along with the techniques we show here should do just fine anywhere in the desert areas of Arizona. It has been one of the core crops of the state for many decades.
I just discovered your channel. We are starting a homestead in the east desert in Utah. Do you deal with excessive wind as well as the hot, desert sun? That is something that we have in abundance while we are building up our windbreaks. It also dries everything out. I was wondering if you had any advice for dealing with wind, or if that's something you have had to deal with?
Hey there Maren! Glad you found the channel and I get the feeling you'll find the content relevant to what you'll be dealing with. We do have regular winds (sometimes quite strong) that come at us from the West/SW of the farm. It's probably hard to pick out in the overhead shots, but we usually double stake our trees with t-posts at the SW and NE corners to allow them to stand up to the wind for their first season or two. The key to helping them survive the wind is giving them the right environment to spread their roots deep and wide as quickly as possible. We also have our fruit trees placed on the East and West sides of the inside area of the property. Over time, those trees will serve as wind blocks for the livestock and ground crops we have planted.
Let us know if you have questions as you go and congrats on that new homestead!!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm thank you for the fast response. We are learning A LOT out here in the desert. It is a harsh environment for getting plants established. Do you have any experience with raspberries? That is one that I've been working with and have had some success and many failures. This is a steep learning curve for me. I grew up in Pennsylvania, so the desert is like a foreign country.
Our winds come from both the NW and the SE, so we've had to protect from both sides. Do you ever use shade cloth as you are getting things established?
@@marenmacmichael6988 we have attempted raspberries in the past and the do grow here. We haven't been able to get one to produce all that well. I'll link a video we did on our old property a few years ago;
ua-cam.com/video/DQIfWUQQmc8/v-deo.html
Thank you for sharing! I have a question...?? How did you know you could reduce the watering from 90 to 60 gallons? What were the signs that alerted this change ?
Great question and we really weren't sure we would be able to swing it. Last year we had to inch the watering up when we hit the hot June weather, because we saw the fig trees starting to get crispy leaves. That really is the only way to know for sure.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm got it! I'm watching everyone pretty closely for crispy leaves. I've built shade structures around a bunch of them for protection. 1st year in the ground and the growth is a bit slow though I think water is good if this was your diagnostics thanks again!
Are you using cover crops and holistic management for your livestock?
Hey Bruce. We're working towards that. At 2 years in on this property it's a work in progress. Our broilers have always been on pasture as have our layers. When we have pigs they're rotated every other month onto new land. For now we're using them to till in front of plantings. Goats are a new addition and they will eventually be used to establish a silvo pasture on the back of the property.
at night, does it feel nice out side ? or do you think it's hot and you dont want to just got chill and sit in a chair outside even
Hey there Mike. It's comfortable in the morning, but evenings are a bit warm still (over 100 is common until early morning). We also have an early to bed, early to rise schedule with the farm. This time of year we're usually in bed by the time the sun goes down and up by 3.
How do you determine how much water is needed? Is sub soil temperature the variable to measure?
Great question Vijay. We don't have a specific formula or use soil measurements to determine that. The wood chip mulch helps us regulate both temp and moisture, so we keep an eye on the trees to see if they're struggling. If so, we adjust from there.
I need an irrigation guy. Any recommendations?
Hey Barb! I'm not sure where you're located, but our irrigation guy is George with Sprinkler Dude. He's been helping us since the first round of irrigation on the old farm and he's the only one I trust to help folks with their fruit tree irrigation. I'll link to his website here for you;
www.sprinklerdude.com/
Do you adjust the irrigation schedule once we get into more of a monsoon season?
Great question Anthony and it really depends. We have not had more than about 1/8" fall in one of these storms we've had come through, so it hasn't been enough to stop the tree irrigation. If we get a drenching storm (standing water around the farm, etc), then we would probably skip that week. That's our long term goal as well. As these establish further and stretch their roots both deeper and wider, they will be able to go longer periods without irrigation and storm water will help even further.
Why are the trees spaced so far apart in the rows? Wouldn't you save space and water by having them closer, just curious
Great question Jack. The primary reason for that was to allow the trees to reach their full, horizontal size potential. For harvesting purposes, we keep the trees shorter than they would typically reach, but we want them as wide as possible to maintain that production. It's definitely not required as they can easily thrive with less space, but we have the space here.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm that's fair enough, what is your spacing at the moment for the citrus fruit trees?
@@jackgeorge6288 the primary orchards (citrus, stone fruit, pome fruit, etc) are on 16' spacing. The exceptions are our large mulberries at the back of the property on 30' spacing as they can quite a bit larger and dwarfing citrus/guavas that are on much smaller spacing (less than 6').
Sir can I use your videos to make hindi language videos for india because most of Indian farmers doesn't know english
Sir this is my WhatsApp no
Please say hii on this no
And Amazing Farming Tech With Rahul is my UA-cam channel
We've seen a few folks in other countries use some of our videos with translations. I would only ask that you reference us in the video, so they know the source.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm yes sir when I will use your videos I mention your channel name
Thank you so much sir for your love and support
@@AMAZINGFARMINGTECHWITHRAHUL you got it!
How long is the watering season? July and august?
Our heavier irrigation season is usually around June - late September. It varies a bit, but that's usually the peak.
It's great. But what about the other trees and bushes that are in other parts of your farm. They are totally dry and you are not taking care of them because they are not giving you fruits. I know you have limited water little bit water you can give them.
Hey P.K. All of our trees are on scheduled irrigation, so I'm not sure what you're referring to with our trees being dry. Do you mean the trees in the surrounding desert?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm pause this video at the 28 seconds. At that time the area you will see is what I am taking brother.
@@p.k.chopra9613 ah, ok. That's our livestock acre and we haven't gotten around to clearing it yet. There are a few mesquite trees in there that do well on their own, but they would do better with a little drink of water.
Thanks for your cooperation. It means a lot...👍👍👍👍
I recently bought mandarin orange, avocado, and grapefruit trees, will they do fine in the Sonoran deserts sandy/rocky soil? It's very alkali and a ton of salt content, will I be able to get away with just planting directly into this kind of media or would I be better of saving for a truck load of dirt? My avocado started turning brown on the tips and edges, not sure if it was due the the horrible quality of water coming from our well... I've recently switched to city water though.
We plant all of our trees directly into the natural soil with no amendments. The key we've found is how/when you irrigate and a flood type irrigation is best (with plenty of wood chip mulch). I'll link to a video here where we show how we water our trees;
ua-cam.com/video/DfDGWElEu7k/v-deo.html
Root stocks for citrus do make a HUGE difference. You didn't mention where you purchased your trees, but a tree grafted/grown in Arizona goes a long way to it being able to handle our soil conditions. Usually there is a tag on the tree that shows the nursery it was actually grafted/grown at before going to the local nursery for sale. That being said, most citrus will grow well here either way. It's one of the reasons AZ is known for it's citrus.
As for avocado, those are VERY difficult to grow in AZ. The soil and climate are not well suited to growing avocado. A few growers in the city have seen some limited success, but most folks have not. Our summers are too hot and dry and our winters are way too cold.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Thanks for the reply, I'm next to the salton sea in CA, makes total sense as to why my avocado has not been doing well being that we have cold nights and extremely hot days, all the trees were purchased from home depot so I'd assume it's grafted. I will load up on lots of mulch, will a 6 inch top layer provide enough cooling during our 130F periods?
@@billythekid5693 ah, ok you're very similar to us. We usually have anywhere from 6-12+ inches of mulch around the trees at any given time and it does the trick.
Picked up some raw land in yucca AZ area. It looks barren as all heck. No clue how I can grow anything there as I never grew anything in my life as it is...
Congrats on that land. If you peak at our intro video you'll see just how little we had here except for scrub. It takes some planning and effort, but you can definitely turn that raw land around. Is that out near Kingman?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarmHi y'all! Thanks for the reply in the live stream yesterday too. I had gone back to watch from the beginning so I saw the response by the time the stream ended.
Yeah it's south of Kingman and south of Yucca. Almost a straight shot south of them, about 10 miles away from the 40fwy.
The land is all shrubs and some tall plants, everything looking spiky and wanting to maim haha.
Your land is about the closest thing to ours, so it's a good gauge on what's growable and how to tackle it. Next steps is clearing shrubs and grabbing a quote on a well/looking at the water table it sits on. Otherwise hauling water from Yucca is the only option. I'm thinking the cattle panel T post builds + some quick sprouting seeds will be the thing to hold us over while getting everything up to make the land permanently livable. Got a lot of permaculture studying to do !
@@warbyothermeans6732 ah ok, we have a few other viewers who are up your way in Kingman and have talked about the challenges. Water really is the key to the whole process. There's no life without it.
What about during winter how many gallons a week or do you do once a month???
Hey Anthony. We have only irrigated a couple of times since November. If there is any rain at all we skip a week or two and we have had rain every couple of weeks which has kept that to almost nothing. At most we water once or twice/month in the cooler months.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Are the "cooler months" December through February? Or November through March?
@@dunedainmom most years that's December through February. By March most of the trees have broken dormancy and are flowering and setting fruit, so they need some extra moisture to make sure there are no issues with that.
How much water do you suppose you will be giving your fruit and citrus trees when they are mature? (Maybe 5 years or older) thank you
That's a great question Steve and I'm not really sure. The goal this first year was to reduce the trees on the primary orchards and it looks like that's working just fine with a 30% reduction over 2021. That's over 90 trees that are already doing well with less. At some point I would like to cut this in half again and I think it may be possible. The key is always going to be having at least some moisture form time to time. This past Winter we saw some rainfall every few weeks and we were able to go without water for most of the Winter season.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I live 5 miles west of you. Last winter I too cut back on water for my mature citrus trees and have had TERRIBLE fruit set this spring. I use a moisture meter and start checking daily after the 6th day of watering. The last cycle on my mature citrus was 9 days and I gave them 120 gallons. My 1st year fruit trees went 7 days with 40 gallons. I do not have any soil currently under or around them but am working on that with organic soil drenching and wood chips. I also,have cow peas and sweet potatoes under/around all the young trees. Just sayin…….
Love your channel. You and Lauri be safe
@@Steve-ig4td are you out in Whispering Ranch?
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm haha. I meant east of you
@@Steve-ig4td ah, ok. Whole new set of challenges with folks making a go of it West of us!
The trees and plants should be planted closely
Most of the trees we have here are production trees that we intend to sell fruit from, so that extra space will allow the trees to reach their full width at maturity while keeping the canopy low enough for harvest. That being said, you definitely can keep them closer together.
Do you guys know how to convert number of inches of rainfall into gallons of water per week? ive often wondered that when it comes to garden bed plants, and many others including trees also, but if a packet of seeds say 8inches of rain per week how does one figure out in real terms how much water that is?
I googled how many gallons of water one inch of rain produces… it comes out to 22,000-26,000 gallons of water in a square acre. I was shocked !
@@Puaspapa oh ok...guess i just need to figure out how many sq feet are in an acre and go from there
43560
Hey Brendan. It looks like a couple of folks are helping on this one already, but if you're here in AZ I would suggest you assume you'll need to irrigate to get your plants what they need. Our rainfall is so inconsistent it will be a necessity, especially for fruit trees which need drenching rainfall for it to be effective. Also,, the plants will tell you when they either have too much water or too little. Yellow, droopy leaves is usually too much and dry crispy leaves are too little.
Where is all this water coming from?
We're on a private well here on the farm.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm how's the water table out that way?
@@y0nd3r it's one of the best in the state. It's filled by the Hassayampa river and current estimates are that the recharge rate is roughly double the discharge. Given it's protected (we have water restrictions in place that we abide by), the hope is it will remain that way. All assuming of course we get some rainfall now and then. Even though we don't see it as often, Wickenburg and the areas to it's North receive them much more regularly which fills the same aquifer.
What is your water source.
Hey Gloria. We're on a private well here on the farm. We did an episode on that a while back that I'll link for you here;
ua-cam.com/video/mD-ucHVNseE/v-deo.html
I really don’t think this will get any replies, but I’m searching for cures of iron deficiency. My nectarine has a severe problem with it. Thanks!
Sorry to hear about your nectarine. Are you sure it's iron deficiency? While trees do need iron and there are some that need it more than others, it's uncommon that you'll see that if you're fertilizing them regularly (at lest in our experience). That being said, there are 2 forms of iron that can be applied to plants. The one that we've had other viewers with this problem suggest is a chelated iron supplement designed for applying to plants. I'll link to it here on Amazon for you;
amzn.to/3ujU75C
Thank you!
What! My 4 fruit trees are watered 2 a week and only 5 gallons,.. should i water them more? I live in desert too but with mulch i like u taught i notice the ground is more cooler or moist even on 3rd day after watering. I have apple, mulberry,pear,and pomegranate
hey Chica! You didn't mention where you're located and how old those trees are. Smaller trees may need more frequent watering (last year we were watering our trees twice/week). How much water you put on the tree will depend on a few things. The amount of mulch makes a big difference. If it's really deep like ours it will allow you to put more water on the tree that will soak into the chips to help keep the soil moist and cool. Where you water is important also, If you're using a watering ring like we do it can take a LOT of water at one time. The big advantage here is the water will penetrate further into the soil allowing the roots to drive deeper down. If you're watering close to the trunk the tree roots will stay there as opposed to growing out and down. When we check our soil before watering there's usually some moisture in the woodchips still, but it's not saturated like it is immediately after watering.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm lol sorry was exited looking at your farm video. Trees are 2yr old and small still. And yes i made rings to water around the tree. Smaller rings since they are young. Ok didnt know the wood chips would keep top soil moist longer next time i dill dig a bit deaper and see if tree need more water. Maybe thats why non of them gave fruit because all trees dropped its fruit small. 😔 it was a bummer
@@chulasexychica11 if the trees are still small after 2 years it may be that the roots have not had a chance to grow away from the tree and get more established. Woodchips around a larger ring may make the difference to encourage them to grow out and way from the tree. Fingers crossed!