Thinking about planting fruit trees

Sorry, no pictures.

I spent the middle of the day at Salamander's farm. I had marked out four rows for apple replant. The original trees went in forty years ago and there are very few remaining.

The original spacing was 6'-6" within the row with rows a generous 25' apart.

I was slow ordering rootstock and the dwarf rootstock were gone. The only ones they had left that were on my "buy" list were G-210, that produces semi-dwarf trees.

Today I pulled flags and replanted them. They are now spaced about 10' apart within the row.

I also threw fertilizer and ground limestone down where the trees are going in. By my count there will be sixty new trees.

The current plan is to plant the rootstock and bud them in early July. Tentative varieties are Enterprise, Golden Delicious, Jonagold. There may be an odd-ball or two that makes it into the mix like Kerr. Time will tell.

I also dropped a couple of the old apple trees and the saw threw the chain after putting #2 on the ground. I did not bring any tools to fix the chainsaw.

One of the other items on Salamander's plan is to sprinkle some micro-orchards deeper within the property.

Currently, the deer nip the southeast corner of the property. Incidentally, that is where the orchard is.

I walked the northwest corner of the property and tentatively put out some surveyor flags where I thing fruit trees will do well. I must be a glutton for punishment because most of the sites I marked were overgrown with blackberries and multiflora rose. That was not an accident. Those species prefer light and fertile, well drained soil, much like the trees I will be planting.

The current plan in my head is to plant pear rootstock in the northwest micro-orchards. Chojuro, Korean Giant and Shinko are all varieties that ripen and drop during Michigan's firearm deer seasons. I have some other varieties I will throw into the mix hoping that something thrives.