Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Bare root trees

I've spent the last few hours going through the local agricultural extensions studies of fruit trees, looking at varieties that grow well and produce a good amount of fruit.  If you're interested in fruit trees for western washington (or anywhere that has similar weather) you'll find a list of reports sorted by tree type and year here.   

What I like about this is that the researchers are objective about what they're reporting, and since the studies span years or decades, you can get a really good idea of what did well and what didn't over time.

So I've chosen a variety of trees which I'll use to both replace existing trees that aren't doing well and to increase the size of the orchard.  Depending on how they do I can market them pretty easily here - think self-service farmstand on the highway - or drive them down the road to the local produce stand.  There's a ready market for good fruit in the city as well.

Note:  I have no connection with raintree nursery other than as a customer.  I include the link so that you can see prices and descriptions, but I'm sure you can find these cultivars at other locations

Most of these trees are either dwarf, or semi-dwarf, or grafted onto dwarfing rootstock; a few of my choices are not; they'll be managed and pruned for production.

I'm adding the following trees

Shiro plum







2 comments:

October Rose said...

Bruce, If you're thinking fruit enterprise for the long-haul, you might consider some standard-sized trees as well. They're a little more work and take a couple extra years to come into production, but they'll serve you well 30+ years vs. 10 or 12.

ClimateRealist said...

I planted the Shiro plum from Raintree 16 years ago. Very productive and tasty. BUT, it loves to lose limbs, so watch your angles on branches. It is too productive, and will go biennial on you (just as bad an apple tree in this regard), so cull heavily (it will also help keep the limbs on the tree).