How do you have that many fruit trees and not disturb utility lines. I have a huge front yard, but we have our electric line going through our front yard. Would it help to put them in raised beds?
We keep the trees small with summer pruning, which by extension helps keep the root zone smaller. Raised beds would definitely give trees more root space above your electric lines.
Is the plan to keep these pruned pretty small? How far are they spaced? We have about a 40 x 40 ft area that I want to turn into an orchard/ vineyard (basically the perennials), plan to espalier along the north fence, the other fence lines we were thinking raspberries, blackberries, and black caps, and somewhere we want grapes. How do we set it up so we get the most out of the space?
The plan is definitely to keep them small with summer pruning. It's working well so far. We love espalier for space saving and then for stone fruit, we have some with even tighter spacing, but five foot spacing is my favorite. Ours that are spaced at four feet work fairly well too. I'd make sure you have plenty of space for paths as well but then with espalier on the north side you can do a hedge row of trees grown at five foot spacing in front of it. Check out our videos on summer pruning to get a better idea of how we do it: ua-cam.com/play/PLDmE93l6ggqQOx7XG4fO-r3qJmsgeDEK1.html
Great orchard! (And music) Do you have a summary of your fertilizing schedule for everything? Is it broadly based or per variety or what? Also do you keep notes or a diary besides YT videos? Thanks from Texas
Thanks! ...and glad you like the music too. We really don't fertilize our trees at all actually. We did get a soil test to confirm that we has sufficient phosphorus, potassium and micronutrients. Since nitrogen is highly mobile in the soil, USU Extension Soil Labs recommended feeding with nitrogen but we have only used a little bit of organic nitrogen (blood meal) on two trees that were a little sluggish compared to the others. I'd recommend a soil test to see what you might be deficient in. We generally don't add nitrogen because we want to keep the trees small. Instead we focus on feeding the soil and building soil health. Since our soils in arid Utah are low in organic matter, we usually top tree plantings with some compost and then add a thick layer of wood chip mulch (4 inches). If you want, you can hear me talk about our approach to fertilizer in our 10 keys video...fertilizer is number 7: ua-cam.com/video/uIYU0kCyVqU/v-deo.html
As for notes or a diary, our webpage started out as a blog, so there are some posts on there but now it has tons of how-to info rather than diary style posts: foodscapingutah.org
Oh wow. I've seen several of your videos but didn't realize you had such a nice website! I see from it how you share the work of foodscapes with galleries of before/afters in addition to your videos. Do you have any regular mechanism or process for updates to the foodscapes, like timelapses of the data?
We will have more videos coming and photos on our Instagram. If you haven’t seen all our espalier videos, you can check those out too. Here’s one from 2019 showing some pruning on all three espalier fences: ua-cam.com/video/R39Ulpsii4k/v-deo.html
how many hours of sun do the trees get? Any that do well in dappled shade or closer to the 4 to 6 range? :) I'd love to add more fruit trees but I've run out of sunny areas. :)
They all get tons of sun, 8 hours plus. In areas under 6 hours, have you already thought about about berries? ...some can do really well in part shade.
@@foodscapingutah5239 I do have some strawberries and raspberries, but had to move them to a bit sunnier locations. Any recommendations? I was looking at maybe trying honey-berries and grape vines in the dappled shade.
@@beccastone835 I was going to suggest honeyberries! I'm not sure about production with grapes. They might do fine, but ours all get lots of sun. In general, I think most berries (and probably grapes) can be healthy in more shade but then they might not produce as much. Our honeyberries do well in the understory of our fruit trees. Other things to look into might be service berry, currants, and gooseberry (thorny).
Any tree recommendations for a 4 foot by about 30 foot city strip? Something for shade but also small enough that it is less likely to destroy the side walk or overhang the street to much. I live in Syracuse UT.
Gorgeous home orchard!
Thank you!
Awesome!
Inspiring!😊
How do you have that many fruit trees and not disturb utility lines. I have a huge front yard, but we have our electric line going through our front yard. Would it help to put them in raised beds?
We keep the trees small with summer pruning, which by extension helps keep the root zone smaller. Raised beds would definitely give trees more root space above your electric lines.
Is the plan to keep these pruned pretty small? How far are they spaced? We have about a 40 x 40 ft area that I want to turn into an orchard/ vineyard (basically the perennials), plan to espalier along the north fence, the other fence lines we were thinking raspberries, blackberries, and black caps, and somewhere we want grapes. How do we set it up so we get the most out of the space?
The plan is definitely to keep them small with summer pruning. It's working well so far. We love espalier for space saving and then for stone fruit, we have some with even tighter spacing, but five foot spacing is my favorite. Ours that are spaced at four feet work fairly well too.
I'd make sure you have plenty of space for paths as well but then with espalier on the north side you can do a hedge row of trees grown at five foot spacing in front of it. Check out our videos on summer pruning to get a better idea of how we do it: ua-cam.com/play/PLDmE93l6ggqQOx7XG4fO-r3qJmsgeDEK1.html
Great orchard! (And music) Do you have a summary of your fertilizing schedule for everything? Is it broadly based or per variety or what? Also do you keep notes or a diary besides YT videos? Thanks from Texas
Thanks! ...and glad you like the music too. We really don't fertilize our trees at all actually. We did get a soil test to confirm that we has sufficient phosphorus, potassium and micronutrients. Since nitrogen is highly mobile in the soil, USU Extension Soil Labs recommended feeding with nitrogen but we have only used a little bit of organic nitrogen (blood meal) on two trees that were a little sluggish compared to the others. I'd recommend a soil test to see what you might be deficient in. We generally don't add nitrogen because we want to keep the trees small. Instead we focus on feeding the soil and building soil health. Since our soils in arid Utah are low in organic matter, we usually top tree plantings with some compost and then add a thick layer of wood chip mulch (4 inches). If you want, you can hear me talk about our approach to fertilizer in our 10 keys video...fertilizer is number 7: ua-cam.com/video/uIYU0kCyVqU/v-deo.html
As for notes or a diary, our webpage started out as a blog, so there are some posts on there but now it has tons of how-to info rather than diary style posts: foodscapingutah.org
Oh wow. I've seen several of your videos but didn't realize you had such a nice website! I see from it how you share the work of foodscapes with galleries of before/afters in addition to your videos. Do you have any regular mechanism or process for updates to the foodscapes, like timelapses of the data?
I’d love to see more pics or footage of the fence espalier
We will have more videos coming and photos on our Instagram. If you haven’t seen all our espalier videos, you can check those out too. Here’s one from 2019 showing some pruning on all three espalier fences: ua-cam.com/video/R39Ulpsii4k/v-deo.html
That’s an awesome video. Thanks!
@@reinabrowne No problem!
how many hours of sun do the trees get? Any that do well in dappled shade or closer to the 4 to 6 range? :) I'd love to add more fruit trees but I've run out of sunny areas. :)
They all get tons of sun, 8 hours plus. In areas under 6 hours, have you already thought about about berries? ...some can do really well in part shade.
@@foodscapingutah5239 I do have some strawberries and raspberries, but had to move them to a bit sunnier locations. Any recommendations? I was looking at maybe trying honey-berries and grape vines in the dappled shade.
@@beccastone835 I was going to suggest honeyberries! I'm not sure about production with grapes. They might do fine, but ours all get lots of sun. In general, I think most berries (and probably grapes) can be healthy in more shade but then they might not produce as much. Our honeyberries do well in the understory of our fruit trees. Other things to look into might be service berry, currants, and gooseberry (thorny).
Any tree recommendations for a 4 foot by about 30 foot city strip?
Something for shade but also small enough that it is less likely to destroy the side walk or overhang the street to much. I live in Syracuse UT.
Hi Paul, I’m not well versed on shade trees. I’d look into USU Extensions recommendations and their ‘tree browser’ that I think you can use online.