r/BackyardOrchard

This is the third year since this apple tree was planted, there are many fruits forming. Should I remove all of can I keep some on the tree?

A few last fruits of the tree in the yard

Wanted to show off my home orchard. Still not finished I plan on mulching each row of trees, adding more mulch and finish putting up cages around them but happy with the progress so far. These are just pictures of my main front yard orchard which has a total of 38 trees out of the 47 I have planted. Most are bare root that were planted in March and April. A few are not dwarfs and were planted a year ago but the rest are dwarfs. Mix of apple, peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots and cherries. Have plans to sell, give away, can and preserve the fruit in addition
making cider. My honey gold set fruit and I have around 20 apples. I’ve done a lot of research in trying to find disease resistant and cold hardy varieties. Still need to learn more about spraying schedules.

Before and after.

We were assured it would just be a trim to give the balcony some more space but they went way shorter than we ever expected. Is it over for this tree? Will it ever bear fruit again?

Hello everyone,

My wife and I are independent growers in the high-desert region of the Pacific Northwest. In 2024, we invested everything into a beautiful piece of land with soil that had been carefully developed over 20 years using organic methods, with the goal of building a legacy organic stone fruit and nut orchard, along with a cannery to process our crops locally.

Late last year, our dream faced a catastrophic setback. Our property suffered an off-target chemical drift event from a commercial applicator across the street from us. The persistent herbicide (Aminopyralid) completely strangled the vascular systems of our 458 mature peach trees, resulting in total canopy mortality.

We are currently working through the state regulatory and legal channels to hold the negligent parties accountable. But as land stewards, we refuse to just sit around and wait for a courtroom. We are moving forward right now to actively heal our earth.

Because Aminopyralid binds tightly to soil organic matter and targets broadleaf plants, we are weaponizing biology to clean the slate. We are launching a multi-year soil remediation plan utilizing deep-rooting, fast-growing forage grasses (like Sorghum-Sudangrass and oats) that are completely immune to the chemical. These roots will fracture the soil profile and pump massive amounts of oxygen down to the native soil microbes, forcing a microbial population explosion to naturally digest and break down the toxin. We also plan to plant rows of sunflowers as natural phytoremediators to pull remaining residuals from the topsoil.

We have launched a YouTube channel to document every single step of this biological recovery—from independent soil core lab tests to the day our new certified organic peach saplings can safely go back into the ground.

https://youtube.com/@orchardquestions?si=sGkrsgjJmzqIyKo-

If you would like to follow our journey, watch our soil recovery videos, or partner with us in crowdfunding the heavy costs of excavation, biological soil amendments, and our future main street cannery facility, please consider checking out our restoration fund.

🌱 Support our Farm’s Recovery & Replanting Fund here: https://gofund.me/d5586cff2

Thank you so much for standing with independent family farms and backing the resilience of our soil.

— Nicole & Seth

As the title inquires, has anyone grown cherry trees from the top 12-18 inches of a bareroot cherry? It is the black gold variety. For some background, 1-2 weeks ago I received my black gold bareroot cherry trees. After planting them I trimmed off the top 12-18 inches to keep them small and decided I’d try my hand at growing more trees. Usually just burn the trimmings but decided to do something different. I’ve heard it’s very difficult to actually get them to grow roots from cuttings. So far, they have been in water only on my kitchen windowsill and both have sprouted some leaves. I see a couple very small root like structures coming out from the bottom. Should I let it sit in water longer or place it in potting mix? I understand it’s a long shot but since they’ve sprouted leaves I’d like to give it a fighting chance if possible.

I planted this Bartlett pear about 4 years ago, a potted big box tree before I discovered bare root options. It has never done much, leaving out but barely growing each year. Last year it randomly threw out about 4 pears.

I’ve thought about tearing it out before but this spring it seems to be dying, about half dead but random limbs? Also noticed the second photo, where the dying limb almost blends into part of the trunk.

It is reasonable at this point to pull it out and replace with better quality right? Any idea what would be causing this type of decline?

First year working with apple trees. No idea what I am doing. Should I thin out these groups?

Hey all, first time posting in here. I have 3 Bartlett pear trees in my yard and only one of them is showing this weird tendril/growth on new tree growth, I can’t find anything online, does anyone know what it is? Should I be worried about it contaminating my other trees? The tree next to this one bore fruit this year but this one did not.

Hello,

I have just planted two bareroot apple trees (a B10 dwarf Davey, and G969 semi-dwarf Sweet Sixteen). Before anyone asks, the root flare is barely in the ground and is safe and sound.

Since they are so skinny and fragile, I have staked them (the Davey will be staked for life, the Sweet Sixteen for 2-3 years only). I was just wondering if I did it correctly. With the graft it's hard keeping them completely straight, and since they are so skinny, even if I barely attach them to the stake (important so they can sway a bit in the wind) they bend a bit. If I need to do any adjustments I guess the best moment is right now before it's too late, but I'm not completely certain, that's why I'm asking (also I'm trying to see if I can avoid doing the work to fix it...).

Thanks.

newly planted apple tree with a few different kinds grafted on. planted 2 months ago. I noticed the bark peeling and discolored. not much leaf growth though a few new ones. any ideas? thanks!

I have a mysterious something eating the leaves of one of my apple trees. It's a honeycrisp planted three years ago. Every year the leaves get eaten down to a web. This year, the leaves are already starting to be eaten, and I've got no flowers. I have Japanese beetle traps out, tanglefoot on the trees, and put out milky spore. The other apple tree 15 feet away is totally fine. 

I've never actually found insects on it, but did find some eggs yesterday. Attaching photos of the eggs and leaves. The very lacy looking one taken from below is from last July, the rest from this week

Hey howdy! Hoping you all can help me decide if I should have cut back a newly planted nectarine tree. It was my first purchase for a bare backyard and like a newbie I went for height instead of girth ;)

The peach went in no issues and I haven’t needed to stake but this tall nectarine has been whipped back and forth with the spring storms. (Ignore the bad staking job I was literally doing it in the rain when it was almost leaning to the ground.)

Do I wait until late summer? Do it now?

It was a 5 gallon Smooth Zest 2 (Zesty 2?). Peach is a 5 Gal texstar peach.

Be kind :)