If you enjoyed this video, please "Like" and share it to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😀TIMESTAMPS here: 0:00 Starting A Food Forest 1:19 High Density Fruit Tree Growing 4:50 Preparing Soil For Planting Fruit Trees 6:48 How To Lay Out High Density Trees 9:22 How To Plant A Fruit Tree 14:17 How To Fertilize Fruit Trees 17:57 Staking Young Fruit Trees 20:25 My Future Food Forest Plan 23:40 Adventures With Dale
Is this a sensible buy (easy to root) for zone 8a Louisiana or should I get a grafted expensive tree? Thanks! >Stem Cuttings of Asian Shin Li Pear (Un-Rooted) - Chruncy Asian Pear Tree Cuttings (3 Cuttings)
Great tutorial! When I sold my property I had a nice sized garden and mature fruit trees. Later I found out the new owners cut down all the fruit trees and removed the garden. I was so sad 😞 I should have inquired what their plans were. I could have waited for a buyer that liked gardening 😒
That is really sad. One of the reasons why I'm planting them around the perimeter like I am is in hopes that they'll live on when I'm gone one day. I feel if I plant them out in the open, they'll be more likely to be cut down. It's wild to me that someone would remove something that gives them hundreds of pounds of free food better than anything in a grocery store and plant some ugly, ornamental shrub instead.
Same thing happened to my mom when she sold her house in San Diego. The new owners took down fruit trees that were over 30 yrs old. We didn't tell her because it would broke her heart. I'm sorry that happened to you. 😕
@@TheMillennialGardener I had almost 4 acres and it looked like a park. There was plenty of room for them to do what ever they wanted without cutting down the fruit trees and removing the garden. They planted grass. 🙄 Now I have my fruit trees in pots. I hope whoever buys your beautiful place at least likes fruit trees and gardening 🙏
I have a question: Do you have any issues with cross pollination when you plant them so close together?? I have Peach, Pear, Apple, Cherry, and Mulberry trees. I have a pretty big yard and the trees are full size, not dwarf, so I planted them several feet apart. But I was still worried about cross pollination. Thx!
Have you ever considered growing some hard kiwi, also known Actinidia arguta? They are extremely cold-tolerant and create very tasty small kiwis (far better than the supermarket kiwi, Actinidia delicious) that can be eaten with their skin on.
Bananas in Wilmington?? 😯 I'm at the Crystal Coast and have never considered I could grow bananas! I did find out recently we could grow citrus so I'm going to try that... I'd love more on the bananas, though!
I am so jealous of the soil you have!!! Any time I want to plant something, I need to get out a pick-axe, digging bar, a couple shovels, and about 30 mins of hard work. It's brutal
It's Southern Yellow Pine sand. Very common in the Southeast. It's easy to dig through (until you hit tree roots), but it's junk in terms of nutrients. You really have to add a lot of compost and mulch. It eventually transforms into something really nice, but I initially have to drop a good bit of money on compost, mulch and fertilizer to get everything going. After about 3-4 years, it becomes really nice and I have to fertilize a lot less.
I have 4 48"x48" sized bins (standard pallet size) to try to make my own compost in because my back yard is all clay. I'm keeping 1 bay open to turn the compost and I'm also trying to use a compost tumbler to see how it compares.
Same here. I have 4-6 inches of sand followed by a foot of compacted river rock that even Bermuda grass wasn't getting through. Lots of pick axing. And crow bars. I have to make a big hole for trees because otherwise they will never get through the rock. It takes me about 2 hours of hard digging per tree.
My yard is even smaller than yours. About a quarter of yours, and I have 2 plum trees, 1 peach tree, 5 blueberry trees, like 25 REAL wild raspberry plants with thorns, 2 store bought raspberry plants without thorns and a 5 in 1 apple tree. And a mini garden.
I always produce a spring garden tour when things wake up and everything looks nice. I have all my past tours archived here if you want to take a look: ru-vid.com/group/PL1gY7BoYBGIH9NUYAULtZRr4dqDGIo355&si=TTU58it7exh_aTH5
@@TheMillennialGardener awesome! What would you say the square footage is for the in-ground area? Both the growing space square footage and the general area itself. (I ask bc I have a 21’x21’ area I’m re-establishing with beds that will give me about 270 sq ft of in-ground growing space.
Alright,,,, I just bout 2 jujuie trees. I live in a rv park in north Texas. I work here plus on aircraft sometimes. I'm turning part of this park into a food forest. I'm 65. My last gasp at life,lol.
Everything we plant will be here when we're gone. It's a way of leaving a little piece of us behind. By the time I quit, I hope to have a thousand offspring growing all over the place 😂
Fantastic tutorial! I am in a Master Gardener class, and we learned about growing fruit trees, and you hit on all the key points very accurately. The only difference is they specifically say to remove the nursery stake and actually let the fruit tree stand up to wind, and that makes them much stronger. But maybe we don't have as strong winds here in California as the u have in North Carolina!
I believe the Master Gardener's of Maryland also told me the same thing and we get weather similar to the south east. I think people like to stake their trees like this guy so they can prune it a unique way and squeeze in more trees.
We planted a fig tree three years ago. It wasn't doing well Early last year my son's dog came for a visit and chewed the branches off. I almost died I didn't have the heart to remove what was left. BUT now the tree is growing like crazy!😀 However, I'll be putting a barrier up to protect it from the little rascal!🐶
I love this. More people need to realize they don't need a ton of space to grow. My lot is 1/8th of an acre and most of the back is my septic and drain field. I have been planting fruit trees in a row along the side of my property, closer together like this. It's working out great! I have more fruit varieties than I ever thought possible on my tiny lot.
The key is annual pruning. If you're willing to stay on top of your trees every year and source the proper dwarf and semi-dwarf rootstock, you can easily plant fruit trees 5-7 feet apart. The key is putting the effort into the design phase. I don't buy big box store fruit trees. I research rootstock varieties to get the trees I want on the rootstock that sizes my tree so it'll fit. When you get the "right tree" and plan things out, it becomes easy, and the planning process is so much fun!
@@wildlifegardenssydney7492 I love it! I love growing my own food. The variety is great, they don't sell a lot of things I like to grow around where i live. My pink guava is now producing a ton of fruit, and I am going to harvest my first pineapple soon!
@@wildlifegardenssydney7492 Have you ever had an Acerola cherry!? So far, they are probably my favorite to grow. They remind me of fruit punch. If you live somewhere they can grow, get one!! Just let them get really ripe before eating.
My yard is aprox 120 feet by 120 feet square. I already have an expanding vegetable garden. I will have at least 8 fig trees (they get large in Louisiana) by the end of this year, five dwarf everbearing mulberry trees, and I want pears so bad and some citrus. I don`t like mowing. The western side of my yard is a 10 ft wide, 120 feet long multi species wild blackberry patch. I will eventually start blueberries but need to learn more. My driveway is over 500 feet long so I plan to get fig and mulberry cuttings planted along it.
My strawberry plants arrive tomorrow and my first mulberry tree arrived yesterday and has a few tiny leaves. I have it under a proper light. Gonna wait until it warms back up to put it outside. My wild bunny friend worries me so I have to make a little fence around it. I got a 100 ft bunny fence that`s 4 feet high so I`m gonna trim it (it`s plastic) into two, 2 ft high, 100ft fences. I got 100 little pencil size 18 inch bamboo sticks to help hold the temporary fencing. Bunny likes 90% of what I like, especially lettuce, beets, amaranth, green beans, and corn. LOL!
I am over in a neighboring island from you. I am almost up to 70 varieties of fruits on my 3/4 acres. I use many 5 in 1 trees to maximize my space. I do tropicals in pots like papaya and alike. I will begin next year with my dragon fruit and mango adventures. You have inspired me to do more citrus this year. I have a 10 x 16 greenhouse for growing through the winter and storing my tropical in pots.
That's outstanding! Dragonfruit is a new endeavor for me, as well. I have 4 varieties in a pot on my sunroom. I can't wait to move them outdoors once it warms up finally. You won't regret the citrus. I recommend taking the drive down to McKenzie Farms in Scranton, SC, and giving Stan a visit if you live near me. It's an easy 2 hour drive and worth the trip.
Before you decide on growing any specific variety of mango, please do see if you can get to taste some Indian varieties of mangoes like Alphonso or banganpalli. They are 100 times better than most mangoes I have eaten in the US. Then, if you like those, you might want to plant those varieties.
Thank you for the great video! I have a 3000sq foot backyard. Just started some figs indoors, have black Madeira, smith, Italian 258, violet de Bordeaux, col de dame gagantia. I plan on using your methods! I live in Arizona so I get plenty of sun. I can’t wait to get some citrus trees. Just hard because no one can ship them to Arizona.
Outstanding! I have all those figs, and they're all excellent. I would rate them I-258, Smith, Gegantina, Black Madeira and VdB. I'm curious what your ranking would be, but they're all great, so it's like splitting hairs. I-258 is a mind-blower if you let it get super soft. Check out Green Life by Shamus O Leary Tropicals for your fruit trees in Phoenix.
Have looked into Goumi Berry bushes? They are nitrogen fixers, disease & pest resistant, and look great in the front yard(HOA friendly). Also, look into Autumn Brilliance Service berry. These look great in the front yard as well. Cheers!
Great video! I did something very similar, but I didn't use dwarf varieties, my trees are on about 16 ft centers along my perimeter. I also put the citrus in locations to block neighbor's windows, and put deciduous trees where it didn't matter. I think my yard is smaller than yours. I have abut 20 fruit trees in the ground, plus blueberries and blackberries, and about 100 ft of 4 foot wide raised beds. The center of my yard is very open. We also have a garden area for butterflies and humming birds. I made my beds more free flowing with wavey edges so that I can fit some groups of native perennials in a middle row, with groups of colorful annuals in places. Unless you know fruit trees, you wouldn't guess that I have some many fruit trees. A few years back, before the winter storm, Uri, I got something edible from my yard every month for 18+ months. It was almost every week, but not quite. The loquat and Pakistani mulberry died in the freezer, and those were two trees that filled in with fruit when many other trees and the garden didn't. Perhaps termites aren't as much of an issue where you are, but near the Texas Gulf Coast they are very bad. If you pile your mulch up against your fence termites will quickly eat the fence. I learned that the hard way. On the new fence, I made some spacers and then stable gunned black plastic landscape edging a few inches away from the fence so the mulch never touches the wood. Your neighbors will thank you for doing this also. I will strongly second your recommendation to dig a square or ugly hole to plant your trees in. When my 15 year old citrus froze I removed the dead root balls. Back when I planted those trees I planted in holes that were about 3x the size of the potted root ball, but the holes were roundish. When I dug up the root balls after 15 years, most of the roots were still within the holes that I had dug. There were exceptions, but it looked to me like for the first few years the roots really didn't break out of the original holes. My trees were in raised beds with the crowns approximately 4 to 6 inches above grade. As I added more mulch and compost some large surface roots did spread out. For those watching, the suggestion was made to back fill to your hole ONLY with native soil. Only add compost and higher quality soil above grade. This is very important in many places because it you backfill with high quality, loamy soil, water will collect in the hole and rot your tree roots. Great tip to use a pipe to check your tree's root ball height to the nearby grade level on each side. I usually just eye ball it, but the pipe trick is one I'm going to use from now on!
I just found your site. Love your vids! You are always very informative. I appreciate your taking the time to explain to us who are new to fruit tree gardening.
I’m so happy that I started planting fruit trees 2 years ago as this year should be great for fruit! I pinched all blossoms for the last two years and will let them all fruit this year. If I have any regrets about what I did, I wish I had ordered bigger bareroot trees. I ordered the 1.5-3 ft from Stark and it’s taken 2 years for them to get to fruiting size. Versus the 4-5 and 5-6 ft trees I’ve ordered from them and started fruiting right away. Love your garden and videos!
Pinching blossoms is generally done to keep the tree from exerting too much energy into producing fruit when it's too young to be able to endure the strain of holding all that weight on its branches &/or the strain of supplying nutrients to all that fruit. My baby potted Meyer lemon tree had 120+ blossoms earlier (yes, I counted) this year, but no way it would have been able to have them all take. Just because the tree is "sexually mature" enough to flower, does NOT mean it's mature enough to take care of "it's offspring". Therefore, it's better to pinch the blossoms for a bit (1-3 yrs?) to let the tree focus on becoming strong enough first before letting it "raise any offspring".
Nice to see youre making progress on your fruit growing program. I plan on adding fruit bearing bushes like bush cherries,honeyberries,goumi berries and blueberry bushes to my mini- fruit tree planting.These will give me an earlier fruit harvest while Im waiting for my dwarf and genetic fruit trees to reach bearing age.I hope you and others can utilize these quick growing bush fruits smaller sized homesteads. Coupled with genetic dwarf and dward fruit trees,they make an unbeatable fruit duo! Thanks M.Gardener for another helpful video!
Love your videos! I have 7 varieties of jujube. Fabulous fruit. I also have 5 varieties of mulberries ,107 fig varieties, 2 olives and 8 varieties of citrus. All in my regular sized yard. Some are n ground but lots are in large containers. Blueberries and blackberries + my veggie garden. I’m in SE La and just changed to zone 10. I love to walk around my yard and eat.
How is it that Americans manage to figure out metric conversions but if a metric user even hears imperial measurements they run to the comments to let everyone know that they use metric….
I bought a dozen bare root fruit trees this year for £6 each (about ~$7.50) and might even buy a dozen more. I can't wait to see if they fruit just as much as the fruit trees I paid £45 and I'll be buying dozens of them in future years!
I recently learned a lot about planting a tree, as I have planted 8 trees. The planting hole shape does not matter. Think about how people want to shape the fruit to what they wanted; they put a cover/box to make the shape the same as the root. Now, the most essential thing about a plant tree, or any fruit tree, is the depth of the hole, the quality of the soil, or your original soil, and how deep you plant your tree. Sure, the insert control, etc. The usual depth of the fruit tree root is 2ft, and if your original soil quality is terrible, consider digging a deep hole and changing the whole soil in the hole. For fruit trees like jujube, the root system is even deeper than the usual fruit trees, but a 2ft hole is deep enough. The skill is called white lily, or white ellen something. The quality of the soil is also important as well. If you plant a blueberry, acidity-lover tree, you may want to modify the soil slightly. Now, one last thing about plant trees is the depth of the trunk. The "pencil" style is not good. The flare should be easily exposed to the surface of the soil line, meaning don't plant your fruit tree too deep. You may cover the tree with manure, mulch, etc. Tree roots need air.
Thank you! Space efficiency is everything in a typical suburban yard. The closer you go, the more you can grow. You just have to maintain the trees well.
Nice I'm doing a small fruit garden between my driveway and property line. I have 2 L shaped raised beds which will hose 3 raspberry plants each, inside the raised area will be strawberries and blueberries in ground. Then a trellis for 1 to 2 passion fruit vines. And then a plum and mandarin orange flanking both sides. Then I'm installing a weeping plum tree in the front yard for fruit and ornamental purposes, and putting a few different figs in containers. The goal for the figs is to plant 2 in the front yard and train them to be more bushy. I figure the live tissue plants will work out well for that purpose.
Please be sure to order NOW! Bare root tree sales are coming to an end. You really need to place your orders in November/December. In a couple weeks, sales will halt, because they break dormancy at that point. Please consult this video for a full list of where I order trees (timestamped in the chapters): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VPxfnDXYxUs.htmlsi=8PVKLkZIh5Qzi8q0 Four Winds Growers is clearing our their stock currently and have a coupon code on their site. In another 2-3 weeks, they'll be gone.
I just got a plum tree for a large pot but now considering putting it in the ground, also more intrigued to replace some small palm trees I have in the backyard with fruit trees 😮
Sweet video, I’m getting so excited about planting all my fruit trees this year. I’ve just ordered two yuzu cold hardy citrus trees. Super excited and nervous to get them in the ground when they arrive.
Love watching the videos of how you plant new trees and lay them out. I have four fruit trees arriving within a month and I'll be doing the same thing as you. Very helpful to see what you do with your bare root trees as my peach tree will be coming in that form. In your greens/veggie garden area, I noticed you had these brackets holding up wires around it. Is that an electric cable to power some stuff or something else? Thanks again for the great vid.
Wow, MG! Great selection of delish fruit!👍Super idea to plant the food forest on the border of your property.👍 You certainly make great use of every bit of your land. Dale's stripes are so cool! He's so beautiful!🐕💕
Thanks! I'll be interesting to see once it's all finally finished. Although I can't truly commit to ever stopping. I'll probably keep finding spots to stick new trees. Dale is a very handsome boy. He's filled out nicely since we adopted him. I wish I looked that good 😂
Thank you! I wish I could agree that a quarter acre is big. The funny thing about space is no matter what you have, you always wish there was more of it. You could give me 20 acres and it would feel small after awhile.
Your chanel has gotten me obsessed with fruit trees and given me better knowledge in gardening!! Thank you! And you got me obsessed with persimmon trees, now i have 3 😅. Thanks for your fig videos too! I now have 4 fig veritys because of your amazingly informative videos! may the garden gods bless your harvest for many years! And thanks again for making these videos ❤.
Lol me too I been trying go grow citrus tree and thought I couldn’t do it because I’m in zone 6 A or B but watching his channel proved me wrong. No im trying to do an order from McKenzie Farm but it’s hard to reach them. But I’m obsessed on getting citrus , persimmon and Meyer lemon
Outstanding! Glad to help contribute to a healthy addiction! I'm adding 2 more persimmons, too. They just showed up in the mail. This is my favorite time of year. There's so many possibilities. I used to get really depressed entering Fall and Winter, but now with all these fruit trees, there's always something in season to be excited about and it's changed my perspective on life.
Very nice! it inspires me to really take the time to well measure and design my garden. It looks so beautiful when it's carefully done! I'm looking forward to see everything thriving in that garden! 😄
.25 acre? In California 99% people there whole lot is only 4500sqft-5000sqft. 50% of those lived in apartments and townhouse. So how can we grow a forest?
Im about to move into a 1/4 acre lot. I wanted 1+ acres so I can have fruit trees, so I thought i had to give that up for my girls. You have given me inspiration and hope that I can still grow the trees I want, for that alone THANK YOU! Please make an updated video id love to see how they look in the future.
Cool stuff! I have a bit less than .2 acres- How do I balance all the ornamental plants that I want to grow which also might be functional for screening with the edible stuff? I’m in zone 6 NY. I’m also dealing with bind weed which if I understand properly as a response to excessive amounts of chemical spraying??
Love to watch your videos Need HELP HAVE 2 ANNA APPLE TREES THAT HAVE FLOWERS BLOOMING, THAT I WANT TO MOVE IN ZONE 8 A CAN I MOVE THEM TO ANOTHER LOCATION NOW OR WAIT TILL WINTER?
18:38 Placing the stake in the ground before the tree is a really good idea (wish I had heard that earlier) - prevents damaging the roots, helps to position the tree when planting, and makes it easier to get the correct planting depth
I enjoyed your well developed and detailed video. While I understand you do not like to promote individual sellers, would you share information about nurseries from where you have purchased good quality dwarf fruit trees?
Hm, what you are planting is not a food forest. A food forest contains all the different layers like herbaceous, vining, shrubs etc. Do you really believe that you have a food forest? Or why do you put it in the title? You have fruit trees, and no forest to be seen.
Amazing information. All the videos are great, but this one is just remarkable for anyone wanting to get into fruit trees. Instead of digging up my lawn, I am going to plant fruit trees along the fence just like the video shows.
You make growing trees look so easy. The problem I have is that I have a sprinkler system and am afraid to dig in my yard too much. Do you think trees will do well in raised beds?
hey man, very inspiring thank you. Question , what's the orientation of your house, fence, tree planting etc, just curious. I have some bananas along the fence now that are starting to come back but I still have plenty of room in between to start some other fruit trees. Fun protect x sure , thank you.
With my heavy clay yard I need to plant my trees in big pots. I got 20 gal ones. Will they eventually get root bound causing them to die? It was already root bound when I received it. I cut through the small ones up and down the sides a bit so it will establish some new roots in the new bigger pot.
Great effort and good luck! Fig trees have very strong roots and they grow extremely much (and much faster than it looks), so i'm afraid you have plant them too near to each other. In the future the majority of the trees they will be removed. Also the citrus trees are planted too near to each other and their roots will be a mess underground. At least one of them in the future someone will remove it.
If you ever want to sell your place, give me a call! I'm too old to do all that work, but sure would love your set-up! have adobe clay here, so wwould have a hard time re-learning it all for sandy soils.
My understanding of a “food forest” is that you grow in multiple layers. Will you be adding to the areas below the trees or leaving the rest of the area vacant similar to a traditional orchard?
Are you in any way concerned about the root travel? Perhaps into the neighbors yard or if they dig on their side down into your trees roots? Any idea on how far fruit trees roots will actually grow underground I know a lot of it depends on soil types densities and fruit tree species, but is there any other knowledge on how close to something I should be planting a fruit tree? Thanks.
I live in Massachusetts where most people have small yards yet the local garden stores and home depot and lowes never have dwarf or semi dwarf trees. I keep telling them theyll sell a ton more if they got dwarfs. So i have all standard fruit trees except 1. Ill just have to prune a lot and hopefully not kill them. I don't like buying online just in case I have to return it. Its too much of a pain.
i have 2 pear trees the 2nd and 3 rd years i got pears then my sons goat eat someof the bark off of 1 of the trees!!! the next yr. the tree that he did not eat the bark off of bloom 1st then i have not had pears sence! WHAT CAN I DO!!
well, bananas are'nt trees, but is it legal in the us to plant trees so close to the border? in germany it is at least 2,5m or 8.2feet away from the border
The back area looks shady. I have a similar area in my yard but I'm worried about the trees getting enough light for trees to bear fruit. I have a big oak tree on the West side which starts casting shade in the afternoon.
What do you use for pest control?? I have a plum tree that is ready to be picked. I have taken a bite out of one and it had a white worm in it next to the pit 🤢. What can I do??
I buy fruit trees from many places. I have a big list in this video timestamped in the description: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VPxfnDXYxUs.htmlsi=iPA9xgpDsg2H7yNZ
@@TheMillennialGardener thank you for that. I wonder if you can narrow it down to tell me great products where I can buy dwarf fruit trees with flying dragon rootstock ?
@@TheMillennialGardener We found a small piece of land that might just do the trick! Once we get started (may still be a while) we'll send you some pics. :) kindest regards.
It might be worth mentioning that a soil analysis can save you a lot of headache later. They often will tell you what amendments to add and in what quantities. It is more difficult to get micronutrients into the soil after the planting. Natural lump charcoal is a great soil ammendment for very sandy soils. It is refered to as terra preta and helps to hold nutrients and water in the soil without encouraging rot. If you have clay soil and relatively flat ground, it helps to make your raised bed significantly higher.
