Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #187: Fruit Trees Done Right: Joel Salatin’s Step-by-Step Guide to Planting

Transcript

Episode #187: Fruit Trees Done Right: Joel Salatin’s Step-by-Step Guide to Planting · Beyond Labels Premium

0:00
SPEAKER_02: I look at the little sapling and look at look at where the biggest root is.
0:04
SPEAKER_02: The big, the big there's always going to be one like bigger root than any of the others.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: Put that root facing north.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: Chances are that tree, that root, that big northern root, came on that tree on the north side where it was planted.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: And so when you plant it using that big root as your north, you're now putting that tree in the I know Cena, you're loving this.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough, and I'm here with our favorite farmer, Joel Salatin.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: And today is another special program because Joel is teaching us another homesteading hack.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: He's going to talk to us about how to plant um fruit trees and bushes.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: The woody things.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: All the woody stuff.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: All right.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll we'll see where this goes.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: And so the the first the first um the first item, of course, is to decide what kind of thing you want to plant.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when you start talking about woody things, it's everything from obviously, you know, fruit trees, apples, peaches, pears, cherries, uh, plums, you know, mulberries, um, uh you know, uh pawpaws, uh, you know, all sorts of things.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then the there are the the sh the the more shrubby things, um you know, things like blueberries and and and that.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: So so the first thing you have to decide is what you want to plant.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: What do you what do you like to eat?
2:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is a little bit like you know, gardening.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Um a lot of people think, well, you've got to plant something exotic.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, don't plant something exotic.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: What do you eat?
2:14
SPEAKER_02: Do you does your family like apples?
2:16
SPEAKER_02: Of course, you've got to think about your own climate.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: If you're in Indiana, you probably won't plant bananas or pineapples.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, so you need to plant something that's consistent within your environment.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: And and and this includes nuts, by the way.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, I just had I just had a guy um from about 30 miles north of us up in Harrisonburg brought me a box of hardy pecans.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: Now, I tried to plant, so I'm coming from a point of of failure and success over the years.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: The first orchard I tried to plant was a complete failure, not because I couldn't keep the trees alive, um, or not because it wasn't a good idea, or not even because it wasn't in a good spot.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: I couldn't keep the deer away.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: And so these little these little um trees just got torn up by the deer.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: And uh I took care of that little, you know, it was about a quarter acre.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: I had I had some peaches and some um some uh Chinese chestnuts.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh I love chestnuts, some um English walnuts, hardy Carpathian pecans, apples, and it was a nice, you know, little quarter acre, had about, I don't know what, you know, 20 trees, but I could not get ahead of the tr ahead of the deer.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: And um, and so two years ago, um, we went out.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: So Daniel, uh our son, he's he's the hunter in the family.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: And so he decided to plant some deer attractive apples.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: He said I could eat one if it was ripe and I walked by it, but otherwise it's for the deer.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: And um, and so he planted, he planted uh a dozen apple trees way far away up by the mountain, way far away in the house in the edge of a field.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: And of course, deer are are crazy up there.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: And um, and what he did, it was really cool.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: Um took nursery shade cloth.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: So the thing about a deer, nice thing about a deer is they're not rambunctious, you know, they're not like a cow.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, a cow, if you want to protect a tree from a cow, you know, you better put up a, you better have something either an electric fence or or a really strong physical fence, you know, boards and things.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: But deer, they're not like a cow, you know, they're they're skittish and they just kind of um opportunists, and they'll come to they'll come to something if they want it, but otherwise they'll they're not they're not gonna tear something down to get into into something.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, he he stuck in uh he put in um four two by two just wooden pieces of oak posts, as poor boy.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you could put in t-posts, but those are real expensive.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: So um, so he just put in these four, four, just two inch by two inch, very, very small, you know, pounded them in with a T-post pounder, and then wrapped that with um nursery shade cloth.
5:29
SPEAKER_02: And that has worked beautifully.
5:31
SPEAKER_02: The deer have not bothered them at all.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: They're going into their third year now.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: We had actually a couple of apples last year in our second year, and um, they're just doing great.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: These apples are doing, apple trees are doing really, really well.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: So I was pretty tickled that that he came up with what I thought was a fairly poor boy way to uh, you know, look, you you you can you can fence it, you know, you can put eight, eight-foot-high fence around, you can uh do really um elaborate electric fence around.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Premier, Premier has deer fencing, electric fencing, the idea being that a deer can jump short and high or long and low.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: So, what they do is they they put up a uh you know about a four-strand electric fence that's just you know regular, like five feet high on the top, not that high.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: But then they offset about four feet from that with an offset wire only about you know 24 to 30 inches high.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: That way the deer, the deer can't can't jump from the offset all the way over the tall fence, and there's not enough room to go under the offset and jump over the the high fence.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: So anyway, you you can I don't want to belabor the point on deer.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: All I'm saying is that that before you start, you know, pre 90% of the success is in the preparation.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: And so before you start, have an idea of how you're gonna protect this.
7:07
SPEAKER_02: And so so deer are a you know, deer are a huge threat.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: They they will they will nibble, they will gnaw, including rabbits, okay, and and and things in it.
7:17
SPEAKER_02: So if you live where there's snow, if you don't get any snow, this won't be as big a deal.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: But if you live where there's snow, what'll happen is um rabbits will come up and they will on those little itty those little uh saplings, they will wring it, they will gnaw the the bark around it, you know, looking for something nice and remember, your your your fruit trees, you're not the only one that likes fruit.
7:42
SPEAKER_02: And and uh your fruit trees are gonna be way more delectable to your uh to the wildlife in your area than you know, an oak tree or a willow tree or a pine tree.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, they're sweeter, they're softer, they're succulent, and so anything that will gnaw is going to be attracted to your little your fruit trees or your bushes um more than they will native stuff.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: So just keep that in mind.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: Think about your protection strategy.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: How are we going to get this protected?
8:18
SPEAKER_02: And and um you you don't have to you don't have to install it first, but at least have it in your mind.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: All right.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: So once you have your protection strategy in mind and your infrastructure in mind, now we've got to choose where to put it, uh, where to put them.
8:39
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, fruit trees and and these about the only thing that enjoys shade is grapevines.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: In nature, grape vines are always, you know, they they trellis up trees, yeah, they grow up in trees.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: And so grapes actually don't mind shade, but almost everything else wants pretty full sun.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: And so if you have a a real shady yard, uh you're gonna wanna, you know, you're gonna want to probably cut some trees to get light.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: They need a lot of light.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: So think about your light space and don't shade your, you've got you've got too much um writing on your you know fruit trees to mess it up by putting them in in too much shade.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: What's the question?
9:34
SPEAKER_01: Can they have partial shade?
9:36
SPEAKER_01: Like say if just in the morning they're in shade from tall trees around them, but then starting at like 10 or 11, and for the rest of the day they're in direct sun.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: Would that be, you think, enough?
9:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, that would probably be enough, but it'll but they they'll be a little bit stilted.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: Uh they'll never achieve what you'd like them to do.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, think of think about any orchard you've ever seen.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: There aren't any tall trees overtopping them.
10:08
SPEAKER_02: Now, that being said, if you want to have some light canopied tree, so what's a light canopied tree?
10:16
SPEAKER_02: A light canopied tree is one that allows a lot of mottled sunlight to come through it.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: And so that would be things like locust or um or or um a walnut tree, uh any kind of nut tree, carpathian nuts, pretty much, you know, pecan trees.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh pretty much any nut tree is going to have a a bit of a of a mottled, you know, not not an opaque canopy.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: Whereas an oak tree, poplar, maple, um, hickory.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: Now I realize that is a nut tree, but I mean uh, you know, um there there are there are open canopied and closed canopied trees.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: So that that can make a big difference.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: So site aspect is kind of a big deal as well.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: So you generally don't want to put orchard trees on a southern exposure, you want them to be either eastern, and that's why I'm fudging a little bit, Cena, on your question about morning shade.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, your orchard trees love morning sun.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: Oh and be because because if if they're getting full um setting sun or or or um afternoon sun, they're gonna be a lot hotter.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you've seen maybe you've uh seen orchard trees, for example, that are where they've painted the they painted white lime on the trunks.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: Um you know why that is?
11:56
SPEAKER_02: No.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: Oh, good.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you something you don't know.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: Um you tell me a lot of stuff I don't know when it comes to homesteading and ag.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: So the reason that the reason they whitewash, you know it's just it's just a lime, just a whitewash.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: The reason they do that on the trunk is because if is because the uh a tree is dark, and it so darkness absorbs sunlight.
12:22
SPEAKER_02: And you can go out on like a um you know a 40-degree day in the sunlight, put your hand on a tree, and it's actually warm to the touch because it's absorbed that that sunlight.
12:35
SPEAKER_02: So what happens is in an orchard situation where there is, you know, it's not a forestal situation, there's not a lot of shade down around the trunk.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, because you want light, you know.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that light is what's going to make the fruit grow a lot better and ripen better and all that.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: So you want all this sunlight.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: So an orchard, an orchard tree is very susceptible to the higher variation of trunk temperature in a day.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: So when it's, you know, so when you get 20 degrees at night and then it it gets to like 50 in the daytime, that trunk is going to go from 20 degrees that's below freezing, and that trunk is going to warm, clear up to like 90 to 100 degrees, even on a 50 degree day with the absorption of the sun.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: And what that does, that ex that that expansion makes the trunk crack.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: It makes the bark crack.
13:33
SPEAKER_02: And it can actually, it can actually hurt, you know, kill the tree, uh, make the tree very, very weak, because you've got a cracked, now you've you know you've got cracked skin.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's the the bark of the tree.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: So the white paint is to repel the sunlight so that the trunk doesn't um doesn't change in temperature that much during it during the day, but between day and night, between sun up and sun being down, the the bark is not going to expand and contract that much.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: That's why they paint them with white.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: But if you if you um put your trees on in the northern hemisphere, generally, orchard sites, I mean, I can take you around here, every every commercial orchard that was here in the night in you know in 1900, and this was big orchard country in 1900, our area here, um every orchard was concentrated on northern or eastern slopes and northeastern slopes, something with a with a northern aspect or an eastern aspect.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: Why?
14:44
SPEAKER_02: Because the sun sets in the southwest, and if you have a southern or a western aspect, the trees got so hot in that afternoon sun.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: So by putting them on a northern or eastern aspect, you protected those trunks from you know from that real hot, uh, hot afternoon sun.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: So if you do that, if you plant them in the northern or the eastern slope, you don't have to paint the white on the trunk.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't, it doesn't hurt to paint them, but but they're not nearly as susceptible.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, not nearly as susceptible to to cracking.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: Now, obviously, you know, if somebody's got a hundred-acre orchard around our country, it's gonna be hard to limit yourself to just northern, northern spots.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: And so, so then they paint them, you know, they're they're gonna put it, you know, cover the whole, you know, the rolling hills, they're gonna cover them with the trees.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: And so, especially the southern and the southwestern, the western slopes, they're gonna paint those with the with the white bank.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: If you didn't want to paint them, is there an alternative you could use?
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like how Daniel created that poor boy shelter for the trees.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: Can you wrap something else on it to you know to deflect to deflect the sun away from the trunk?
16:03
SPEAKER_02: You could you could wrap them with some sort of um of opaque white material, but if you you want a material that'll breathe, yeah, something like like Rime, uh Polybond.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh I've I've never seen anybody wrap it in those.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: It would it would look like it would look like you've wrapped your tree in it with a mummy, uh, you know, in um in mummy outfit, I suppose.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: But uh but but cheap cheap lime paint, cheap, um not paint, but just cheap lime, you know, lime water.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is um, you know, tiny Oh it's lime water.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's just lime water, it's just whitewashing the fence.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: No, this isn't what paint from down at the down at the uh uh lows.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: No, this I thought you meant paint.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't want to put paint on my tree.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: Like no, this is the this is the old what's what's called uh whitewash.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: It's just it's just a lime, uh, you know, a a lime um a lime mixture.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: Which which gives the tree some calcium.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: It's it's no, this this is not anything that's gonna hurt the tree.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: Just just remember, in general, in the northern hemisphere, fruit shrubs do better in um in in northern and eastern aspects from a terrain standpoint than they do in southern and western because of this this temperature fluctuation.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: Now, there are exceptions to that.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh exception would be something like um something like uh probably currant bushes, uh whether you want a lot of sun to ripen them, maybe even blueberries, you know, to help to help push the ripening.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh that might be the that might be an exception.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: Um you're getting a little bit past my horticultural knowledge there.
17:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh, that would be something to check with your, you know, your your garden store, your horticulture um coach.
18:05
SPEAKER_02: All right.
18:06
SPEAKER_02: So so I I want everybody to think about aspect where you are and and how, and remember, where you plant that, you know, this isn't a squash.
18:17
SPEAKER_02: It's not a uh you know, a tomato plant.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: So this is this is a plant that's going to expand.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: And every time I hear a talk by a horticulture coach, they always talk about imagine this plant when it's mature.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, that that little that little uh sapling that you plant next to the shed four feet away in six years, it it needs to be 10 feet away, you know, because the because it's gonna be a tree.
18:49
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be a canopy.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: So think about as you plant, give yourself some room.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: Give yourself some wiggle room.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: Don't squish these things up around, you know, outbuildings in your house and stuff.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you want to get it out far enough that when the full tree is fully developed, you know, you don't have to keep pruning off half of it and make it look weird, you know, because it's because it's too close up against something.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: All right.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: Now, the next, so we we've we've picked the site, we've picked what we want to plant.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: Now, the next thing is preparing the actual hole where it's gonna be.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: So this plant is going to the the the sapling.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: It obviously you're gonna get a one or two-year sapling, it's not gonna be big, um, but you don't want to crowd those roots, and you want to give those roots plenty of room for expansion.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: This is a permaculture concept, and that is you ideally you prepare the site, and that's one of the reasons we're doing this podcast in the spring here, because you want to plant the tree in the dormant season.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to plant a tree when the leaves are on and it's it's growing summer.
20:07
SPEAKER_02: So you're gonna plant it in the dormant season, late fall, winter, early spring, before the sap starts coming, before, well before any buds start to come, any of that sort of thing.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: But you want to prep the hole, prep the site six months to a year before planting.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: Why?
20:26
SPEAKER_02: Because you want to acclimate that site to a tree.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: And this is and and one of the easiest ways to do that is dig your hole and make it plenty big.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: Don't dig it with a post hole, uh a post hole digger or something.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: Um uh make it bowl-shaped, make it plenty big.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, make the hole twice as big as you actually think you'll need to get the roots in.
20:56
SPEAKER_02: And so um for a normal, like a normal apple tree sapling, you know, you're talking about a hole uh two two feet, two feet in diameter at the top at least, and then going down maybe um you know, 18 inches, all right?
21:11
SPEAKER_02: You know, for a sapling that's um two or three feet tall.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: And and so you're gonna make this kind of uh a deep bowl, and you can just fill it with wood chips and compost.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: That's the easiest thing to do.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: Just fill that hole with wood chips and compost and let it sit for six to twelve months, and that will start to change that sod.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: See, trees like fungus and lawns like bacteria and grass like bacteria.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: A lot of times we plant our fruit trees.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: We you know, we we have a lawn or we have a you know a piece of grass that we're gonna now turn this into an orchard.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: And so um grass tends to move toward.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Bacterial microbes, trees like fungal microbes.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: So that's why you want to put a bunch of wood chips and compost in this hole so that you're acclimating it with fungal bacteria or with fungal microbes rather than just bacterial microbes because that's going to make your tree healthier.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Question.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: So after you've dug your bowl-shape hole and you said you're going to fill it with the wood chips and compost, do you fill it um just all the way to the top so it's level with the ground?
22:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:33
SPEAKER_02: And then you don't In fact, I I would mound it up a little bit because it's gonna, it's gonna decompose and sink.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: And then you don't add so all of that, you know, dirt that you removed from that bowl-shaped hole, you don't add even a little bit of it back in with the wood chips in the compost.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: You you leave all that out and you're only putting wood chips and compost back into the bowl in a as as you know, in a mound shape.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh you can put a little bit of the dirt back in, but not much.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: Not much.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I wouldn't put a lot in.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: Um because you want that to mellow.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: You want, man, you know, you want earthworms to come in there, you know, you want all sorts of uh really good attract attractants in there.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: All right.
23:22
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna let that sit.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: Just let it sit.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: And now we get to the the trees arrive.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: Finally the day comes and the trees arrive.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: Big, big day.
23:37
SPEAKER_02: And this is gonna be in the dormant season.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: So now we're gonna go, we're gonna dig out our the stuff from our bowl, and we're gonna plant the tree.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: And um, I know Cena, you'll appreciate this.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, I have always, and I don't remember where I read it first, but because of energy and the electromagnetic field between the north and the south poles, what we have, we have we have bands of electromagnetic fields going between the poles of the earth.
24:11
SPEAKER_02: And so um so I have always here in the northern hemisphere, uh, I always plant my trees.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: I look at the little sapling and look at look at where the biggest root is, the big, the big there's always gonna be one like bigger root than any of the others.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: Put that root facing north.
24:37
SPEAKER_02: Chances are that tree, that root, that big northern root, came on that tree on the north side where it was planted.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: And so when you plant it using that big root as your north, you're now putting that tree in the I know Cena, you're loving this.
24:58
SPEAKER_02: You're putting that you're putting that tree in the same electromagnetic orientation that it grew in the nursery.
25:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: So when you uh when you plant the tree, get it, get it turned right, it'll probably come well pruned.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: You probably won't have to do anything with the pruning.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: And it'll look like not much, you know.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: Um, but that's okay.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, they prune it off.
25:32
SPEAKER_02: The reason that they prune these trees heavily on the roots and the tops is so that the tree in the in the transplant shock doesn't have to maintain appendages.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: You know, think about you, you know, if you were out in a 30 30-degree day naked in the rain and you start to hypothermia, your body starts to shut off.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: Where do you frostbite first?
25:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, ears, tip of your nose, uh, fingers, toes, right?
26:01
SPEAKER_02: That's where you start to frost.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: Why?
26:03
SPEAKER_02: Because your body is shutting down the appendages to concentrate, so your you know, your heart keeps running and your lungs and your liver and all that keeps running.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: The plant is the same way.
26:14
SPEAKER_02: So the core of the plant is the the whatever, the internal organs of that plant.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: And if they if they didn't whack off the top and whack off the roots, it it the plant would lose its internal core energy trying to maintain those little twigs and those root hairs.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: It's a lot better to trim those off so the plant has only its core to deal with, and then it'll send out new shoots and new roots.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: It'll send all that out if the core energy is maintained.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: So orient your little tree, put it in, and try to put it in so that it's at the same um, you can see you can see the dirt line, you know, whether it comes wrapped in a in a uh a sack or you get it in a you know in a pot.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: A lot of you know, uh things like this would be potted.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: Um many of them, of course, come bare root, you know, bare root just packed in you know, wet sawdust and a and a paper sack.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: Um anyway, look and and you know, see where where was that where was that uh that dirt line, okay?
27:29
SPEAKER_02: When you're and I'm gonna I'm gonna dig down on this, uh, no pun intended, uh, a little bit, because this is very different than, for example, planting a tomato.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: When you go and you get tomato sets, let's say from the you know, the garden store, you're gonna plant tomatoes and you get these tomatoes in pots, those you want to plant those really deep.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you plant those, goodness, four inches deeper than they were in the little grow pots, they'll be fine.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: You can plant those deep.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: But a tree, if you plant it deep like that, it'll die because the bark, the trunk, the trunk is not supposed to have dirt on it.
28:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, it's supposed to be out in the air.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: That's the way the plant, that's the way the tree started.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: So, so try to duplicate the ground level.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: When you put that tree in, obviously don't have it sticking way out, you know, where the dirt line is out two inches, but also don't bury it deep where the dirt line is under two inches.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: Try to hit that that dirt line just right at that spot.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is critical.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: The biggest enemy of a newly planted, we'll just say apple tree.
28:47
SPEAKER_02: That's the most common of all the orchard trees.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and and most of us love out, who doesn't love an apple, a good apple, right?
28:55
SPEAKER_02: So um the most common uh killer of freshly planted fruit trees is weeds, grass encroachment and weeds.
29:08
SPEAKER_02: Not just because you get all of this competition up around the little seedling, and it's it's trying to you know send out little rootlets, it's trying to, you know, trying to survive.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: Not it's not only just the vegetative composition up around the or the competition up around the plant, but that also tends to bring in mice.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: The roots will bring in mice and rabbits, and they're going to gnaw that fresh little um the bark.
29:37
SPEAKER_02: Remember, these are fruit trees.
29:39
SPEAKER_02: They're sweet, you know.
29:40
SPEAKER_02: They're uh and and every mouse, every field mouse, every mole and rabbit loves a fruit tree.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: And so one of the most important things you can do when you plant this tree is to put a um some sort of landscape cloth.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: So I don't like plastic because plastic just you know won't breathe.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: What you're looking for is a is a really impermeable, so so landscape fabric allows air and moisture to go through it, but it doesn't allow anything to sprout through it.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: So it's a mesh, but the mesh is real fine.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: And landscape fabric uh works great.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: And and I I would go out to the edge of your bowl at least, out there, you know, um a little beyond the edge of your bowl, maybe maybe out at least two feet from the base of the base of the tree.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: So you have a four-foot circle.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: Three feet's probably enough, but but somewhere between three and four feet.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: A three and three to four feet diameter circle of landscape fabric, and and I'm using that is the term landscape fabric.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: That you can go to any garden store.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: Could I buy some landscape fabric?
31:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, they'll have that for you.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: Cut it in, you know, cut it in a square, cut it in a square so that you're at least, you know, two and a half, three feet out from the base of that tree.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: And that's gonna keep mice away.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna keep because mice aren't gonna want to, you know, run over, they're not gonna want to run over that landscape fabric because they're vulnerable, you know, because they're exposed.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: All these little critters and rabbits and everything, they want to hide down in the bushes, which is why if you plant this tree and then you get, because remember, you've got this real, you've made this extremely fertile, fertile little bowl, you know.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: And so, man, next thing you know, there's gonna be lamb's quarters and pigweed and ragweed, and it's gonna be six feet tall.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: Where's my tree?
31:46
SPEAKER_02: You know, and of course, that's gonna attract all of the you know, scared, fearful little rabbits and and squirrels and chipmunks and and and uh mice uh to that to that little um to that nesting area.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: So that's why your landscape fabric is so important to keep, I call it a demilitarized zone, all right, a DMZ, you know, around that plant from gnawing critters and because of the weeds.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: The number one reason why people lose their orchard trees is vegetative competition up around the tree that not only competes for nutrients, it shades the tree, but mainly it attracts bark-gnawing rodents.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: So with the landscape cloth, am I just literally laying it down or am I connecting it to the the tree bark?
32:47
SPEAKER_01: No, you just literally lay it down like a blanket.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: You're you're you're you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna lay it down um like a blanket and and probably put um you know uh you you you can you can take some of your extra dirt and put just a little bit of dirt around the edges, you know, pin it down good.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean you can buy, I mean, if you want to really splurge, uh you can you could uh just take some spikes, some nail spikes, and and pin it down good.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: What you want is you you want the edges, here's the thing.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: You don't want a mouse or something to be able to get in under the edge of it.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you want it, you want to make a a bit of a trough, maybe that you can then, you know, uh put it and and then lay the lay the the lay the sod or the you know dirt back up over it and and maybe to put some nail spikes through it stuck in the ground, just because you want that you want that to really be solid and stay tight.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: And uh and over time, over time that shade cloth, that shade cloth, that nerd, that landscape fabric will gradually just it'll just decompose in the UV light and stuff, it'll gradually just go away.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: But it'll take it, you know, um what three to three to five years.
34:14
SPEAKER_02: But by that time, in three to five years, your tree will be big enough to um to to where nothing can nothing can gnaw all the way around it, you know, it'll be you know three inches uh big.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: Another thing that you can do, this was a trick that an old old timer uh orchardist showed me, and it's really effective.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: Another thing that that you can do to protect your tree from gnawing, and and I have a lot of experience with this because I've lost a lot of trees to gnawing.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm belaboring the gnawing thing because it's real.
34:52
SPEAKER_02: That's a big deal.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: And here you're you're you know, you got this wonderful little tree, it's struggling, and here come the rabbits, you know, while you're asleep in your bed, and they're out there reaching, wreaking havoc, you know, taking all the bark.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: And and once once they take, if if they get all the way around that bark, yeah, they're gonna be the tree's gonna die.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: It's not gonna make it.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: So a great trick that an old timer orchardist showed me was he said, when you plant your tree, just take a little, a little, uh, like a one-inch by one-inch board.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't have to be much, and and stick it down into the ground, put one on one side, one on the other side of the little of the little tree, and you know, tie a string around it.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: That way, even if your cloth doesn't, or no matter what happens, nothing can come up and gnaw around that little trunk because now you have a a little you know, one inch by one inch stake on on one side of it, one inch, you know, and this doesn't have to be long, uh, you know, three three feet is plenty.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: All you're trying to do is is protect that vulnerable little um that vulnerable little trunk right there at ground level from anything gnawing it.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: And if you if you put one on one side, one on the other, and just tie it with a string, uh obviously, you know, the string is gonna eventually rot, the tree's gonna, you know, the the the little wood pieces are gonna rot and you know it's it it all goes back to the earth.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you wouldn't have to keep moving it like as the cree as the tree grows, I don't have to untie it and move it out more.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay, just like the rot.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: By the time the tree grows that much, it it'll be uh it'll be all gone.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: But these trees will grow.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you I'm belaboring this whole prep and get it planted right and all that, because what I want, and what and what anybody that does this, what you want is you want a tree to to jump.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: You don't want it to sit here and be stagnant and and and kind of you know uh um whatever, you know, retarded.
37:01
SPEAKER_02: You want it to just jump and and and and so these well retarded in growth.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: I'm not trying to yeah, it we've gotten so sensitive, some of these words we can't even use them anymore.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: You you don't want to retard the growth, you want to you want to uh accelerate the growth so that the tree gets gets some diameter to it as quickly as possible.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: And uh and so that's what we're after here.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: So that's why all this prep work is gonna pay off, because you're gonna have, you know, within within three years, you're now gonna have a tree that's you know a nice robust two and a half, three inches in diameter, and is and the top of it is now going to be, I mean, we're going into our third year with these apples that Daniel just planted.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, and at two years, by the end of this year, the the treetops will be above what the deer can get.
38:00
SPEAKER_02: Oh, so they're they're you know they're doing extremely, extremely well.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: Is that generally how long it takes?
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Like, does it take three years before you can get a tree where you can eat some fruit off of it?
38:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
38:16
SPEAKER_02: Now, now that said, Cena, there there's there's three kinds of trees.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: You can get dwarf, swim uh, semi-dwarf, and you know, uh normal trees.
38:29
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, dwarf is where they've um grafted a tree on rootstock that's a dwarf, and those trees, you know, you might get something from them in their second year.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: Generally, you know, it generally is three years, but a dwarf, a dwarf apple will never get taller than I don't know, um six or seven feet, uh, maybe eight feet.
38:55
SPEAKER_02: It'll never get very big.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: The beauty, of course, is that you don't have to go too far off the ground to pick the apples.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's it's close to the ground.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: The negative is that there are they are much more fragile.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, it's it's it's like a it's like a you know, it's delicate, and and they don't live very long.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, uh a dwarf tree might not live more than uh, I don't know, 15 years.
39:25
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: Whereas a semi-dwarf, which is a little bigger, they'll grow.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, our that's what we've planted.
39:34
SPEAKER_02: We've planted semi-dwarfs, um, and they'll get up, you know, uh 15 feet maybe.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so so on an eight-foot stepladder, you can pretty much pick pick that tree.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: It's it's not that tall um at the top, and you you know, you can prune it and all that.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: And and they they will grow.
39:55
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I mean, the after I lost that initial, you know, uh trial back when I was almost a teenager, um then I planted these here around the the hub of the farm here, and um, you know, those are now whatever, 20, 25 years old.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: And and a semi-dwarf will last usually, goodness, 50 years.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: And then, and then you get you get the conventional tree.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, those will get on up there to 20, 25 feet, you know, they get where you got to get a ladder.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, my my favorite uh fruiting tree was Teresa's grandmother at her at her place in their yard, they had a they had a pear tree.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: And it was an old um you know, conventional, not not a dwarf or semi-dwarf, old pear tree.
40:51
SPEAKER_02: That thing was um it was 35 feet high, maybe 40 feet.
41:00
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was well, I'd go over there with this with a 40-foot slip ladder to pick on that thing.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: But Cena, that one tree, that one tree would produce and huge pears, beautiful big um pears.
41:18
SPEAKER_02: And we'd go over there and pick 55 gallon barrels full of pears.
41:25
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
41:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that thing probably produced, I'm gonna say, I don't know if it was a hundred bushels.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: I'll bet that thing produced a hundred bushels a year.
41:37
SPEAKER_02: It was unbelievable.
41:39
SPEAKER_02: And we and we picked that tree uh year after year.
41:43
SPEAKER_02: There there were a couple times when it was it wasn't very productive, but most of the time it was just loaded with it was it was an it was a massive, massive tree.
41:54
SPEAKER_02: And um after she died and and all the we finally took it down.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: But uh and but but we did um we have taken some cuttings and we have now some that we've put on semi-dwarf rootstock here around the garden from that tree.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: So we've we've kept we've kept the we've clone we've cloned that tree um onto semi-dwarf rootstock so it won't you know it doesn't get so big.
42:23
SPEAKER_02: So uh so that will that will get you you're now up and okay.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: So now once you now we've got the tree planted, water it heavily immediately.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: Water it.
42:38
SPEAKER_02: Um water that thing in and don't be sparing about the water.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: Don't worry, you're not gonna drown it.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: All right.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: The other the other thing, the other factor that retards the growth of of um fruit trees in their first year is lack of water.
42:54
SPEAKER_02: So don't let that thing get real dry.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: But but don't make it too wet either.
42:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, go up and check.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh and and and and it's like Goldilocks.
43:06
SPEAKER_02: It is like Goldilocks.
43:07
SPEAKER_02: I will tell you that um, you know, here we we haven't watered these trees at all, and they've done very well.
43:16
SPEAKER_02: I've none of these fruit trees we've done, and we're in a 31-inch rainfall area.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: So uh the key there is again, your your landscape fabric is gonna act as a mulch to hold the moisture in.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: And all of that compost and wood chips you had in there, all those worms, that's gonna really hold moisture in as well.
43:36
SPEAKER_02: So the main thing is you want to get goodness, a five gallon bucket of water when you plant that tree is not too much.
43:46
SPEAKER_02: Water that thing really, really well.
43:48
SPEAKER_02: Water it in.
43:50
SPEAKER_02: Once you've got that done, then put up your protection, whatever your protection is.
43:54
SPEAKER_02: You know, your what I told you, you know, put in your your little um wooden and those that.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: And that needs to be, just so we're clear, that needs to be way up over the canopy.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: Because you you've got you've got the ground rodents, like squirrels, mice, rabbits, that's one element.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: But then the other is the deer.
44:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
44:20
SPEAKER_02: So the deer are gonna are they're gonna go from from the trunk to whatever they can reach uh with their mouth, which is pretty high.
44:28
SPEAKER_02: And of course, the the little ground mammals are gonna get down at the ground level.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: So um so your your protective, your deer protection needs to be at least, you know, six feet high.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: Needs to be six feet high, and and out just far enough that that those tree that the deer can't can't come up and eat the eat the little canopy, you know, as the as the tree gets to be, you know, what three, four feet tall, that that the deer can't get in and eat that, eat that canopy.
45:10
SPEAKER_02: All right.
45:10
SPEAKER_02: That that's the key.
45:11
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if if a deer, if a deer defoliates that tree, I mean, here you got this little tree, it's starting to grow.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: Here comes this deer up, and the the deer eats the leaves off.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: Well, the deer is just eating off the the energy factory for the tree, and and and they'll they'll they'll kill the tree.
45:29
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they'll they'll absolutely kill it.
45:32
SPEAKER_02: And so so you gotta make your you gotta make your um your protection at least higher than the canopy of that little seedling in order for the you know for the deer to stay up away from it.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know, I heard somebody told me a long time ago that a trick to help keep deer away from the garden is to hang soap.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Like they they said, hang Irish spring soap from the garden, from you know, from the edges of the garden.
46:04
SPEAKER_01: Does that actually work?
46:08
SPEAKER_02: I've never done it, but I've certainly heard the same thing.
46:12
SPEAKER_02: And um, I would say this that um you're welcome to try anything you want.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to try Irish Spring because I don't want that soap on my land, but I I know uh you'll love this.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: I know what works the best of anything, a dog.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: A dog works better than anything.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I I've actually met people who who you know had a you know, a 10, 15, 20 acre commercial orchard, you know, and they have a guard dog in there, just like you would sheep or ducks or chickens.
46:55
SPEAKER_02: And dog very effective, very effective.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: But that dog probably lives outside, right?
47:02
SPEAKER_02: That dog would stay outside, yes.
47:04
SPEAKER_02: He would not live in your bed.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
47:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the deer are probably smart.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: They would know this is when that dog's inside the house.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: I can go now.
47:13
SPEAKER_01: Although I was thinking, okay, I got five dogs, so I can plant five trees and have one dog sitting on guard for each tree, like at all times.
47:21
SPEAKER_02: No, one dog.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: And it and and it doesn't have to be a big, I mean, even uh just any dog.
47:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, a a chihuahua.
47:29
SPEAKER_02: Chihuahua would probably um I don't know if a Pomeranian, yeah, I expect even a Pomeranian, you know, uh deer are they're skittish.
47:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, think about how you know they're they're they're always skittish, and so it doesn't take the dog.
47:42
SPEAKER_01: So I'll tell you, Joel, just kind of a side note, interesting story here.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: Now that we've been out our new homestead, the energy here is so calm.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, like we're away from all the Wi-Fi and everything.
47:55
SPEAKER_01: So my dogs have calmed down so much that I kid you not.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: We will be in the house and we have these huge, like sliding glass doors.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: So it feels like you're out in nature, and the animals can see in.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: And my dogs basically lay down and look out the window like it's their TV all day, right?
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Um so the deer will literally come on that side of the yard within about 20 feet of that sliding door, and then they're just eating, they're eating something in the grass.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is, but there's eating stuff.
48:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, you you you've probably planted a lawn, right?
48:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so there's eating the seeds or yeah.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, no, what your your your lawn now.
48:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you've you've got this nice, you know, this is very succulent, succulent grass, and so the deer, your grass is sweeter than anything around because it's a nice, freshly newly planted lawn, and uh, and so the deer are drawn to it just like they'll be drawn to your fruit trees.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it is incredible because they will get that close to the house now, and the dogs just lay there like they're just saying that, yeah.
49:06
SPEAKER_02: And then on the other worthless dogs.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's my yes.
49:10
SPEAKER_01: My husband says I have spoiled those dogs into uh love puffs.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: So, anyhow, the kids threw seeds outside in the yard because they they heard birds overhead, so they went outside, threw all these organic seeds, you know, our food seeds outside.
49:27
SPEAKER_01: And um, that attracted all the little birds.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: So this was the craziest thing.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: One little bird came around, he was trying to eat the seeds, he ate them all.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: So he hops up right next to that sliding glass door, right next to the dog sitting there on the other side of it, and he's just staring in there, like waiting, can you give me more seeds?
49:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, wow, like and my dogs did nothing.
49:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: He just looked at him.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's like it's like uh it's like my wife Teresa says, Um excuse me.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: Um when we when when we when she goes out to the cows and we have the bulls in there breeding, um and and um she's a little more, a little more timid than I am around the bulls and stuff.
50:11
SPEAKER_02: And and she says, it's amazing how much that little strand of electric fence, how much courage that gives you, you know, when you're up against that bull, you know, he's on the other side.
50:21
SPEAKER_02: When you step in, now you're you know, you're in his territory.
50:24
SPEAKER_02: But as long as you're on the other side of that little electric fence, I mean you can hardly see it, but the bull knows it's there, and I know it's there, and I have courage.
50:33
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
50:35
SPEAKER_02: So that that's the way you're dealing with the the bird knows the dogs can't get to them, and the dogs, oh, they don't care.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: I know now the dogs are so relaxed, they're like, whatever.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, yeah, low, low end, low energy, just uh chill out, chill out times, yeah.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: But but wait, before I mean I can't believe it, we're almost out of time, but before we're not a time, once you you've done all this, do you need to put anything like any compost or additional anything?
51:06
SPEAKER_01: Do you need to give it to the tree over the years?
51:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
51:10
SPEAKER_02: So so we we've discussed, you know, how to start.
51:14
SPEAKER_02: And and if you if you go through what I've described carefully, you won't have to do anything for three to four years, okay?
51:25
SPEAKER_02: Within three to four years now, now you can take your protection for the deer off.
51:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, your tree is up and running.
51:32
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I don't have time to go into pruning right now.
51:36
SPEAKER_02: Pruning's another whole, you know, another whole uh art and craft.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: There's there's plenty of videos, and and I mean, if I were you, I'd I'd the main thing about pruning is you want light into the tree.
51:51
SPEAKER_02: That's what you're doing.
51:52
SPEAKER_02: You're trying to reduce, you're trying to reduce um uh air, air movement and shade, and you're trying to open that tree up.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: That's why you see orchard trees, they're always kind of you know squatty and low and and and and uh bowl looking.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh, because what you're trying to do is is is keep that inside open so light gets all the way around in in the tree, especially taking the suckers off as it gets older.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, our fruit trees here, uh another thing that really kills fruit trees is bumping them with a with a lawnmower.
52:31
SPEAKER_02: So that that's why we have all of our fruit trees here around the house and in the yard.
52:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, we've actually put, of course, we have a sawmill, so I can go out and cut, I can cut um, you know, cants, like big eight, eight, eight inch by eight-inch cants, and we have like a five-foot um uh you know box around the trees that we then keep full of wood chips.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: The the wood chips make it make it seem kind of forestal as opposed to lawny, grassy for the trees.
53:07
SPEAKER_02: So the trees get their fungus, but it also keeps us from going up around the tree with a lawnmower and and bumping the tree with the lawnmower and and knocking the bark off of it.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: Or or a weed eater or anything else.
53:22
SPEAKER_02: So you you you mulch it, you feed it with the wood chips, they just decompose.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: And so on these fruit trees around here, you can just, I mean, I can just take my hand and just stick it down in the soil, you know, 12 to 16 inches, just black, you know, because we just every, you know, every couple of years we just add another foot of wood chips, and they just slowly decompose another foot of wood chips, and that keeps it nice and clean, identifies it, you know.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: I this is this is tree.
53:50
SPEAKER_02: We had a guy here uh one time who was a mushroom enthusiast, and he actually planted wine cap streferia mushrooms around the fruit trees, and those things will get they'll get mushrooms the size of a basketball.
54:03
SPEAKER_02: They're massive.
54:04
SPEAKER_02: And uh he would sell those things for like 30 bucks a piece.
54:07
SPEAKER_02: They were unbelievable.
54:08
SPEAKER_02: But you know, you you can use that for for just about anything.
54:13
SPEAKER_02: A fruit tree, as opposed to like, you know, oak trees and things like that, they actually have a very um soil level, a soil-level root structure.
54:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh a lot of feeder roots are going very, very close to the surface.
54:33
SPEAKER_02: That's that's why you never want to run uh cows under your orchard because cow hooves are so heavy.
54:40
SPEAKER_02: The the the old the old uh standby was sheep, because sheep don't, you know, sheep, the two things.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: One is their hooves, they're not as heavy, so they don't they don't uh crush the little root hairs of the fruit trees.
54:54
SPEAKER_02: And number two, they're not tall enough to eat the fruit.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: Cow, you know, they could reach up and eat apples, you know, up goodness, uh, you know, six and a half feet high if you got a you know pretty good sized cow.
55:06
SPEAKER_02: So um, so you know, sheep were the they were the the standard the standard lawnmower in uh orchards.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: So you want to uh you yeah, uh a barrier around those trees, some sort of a uh a barrier that you can just fill then with wood chips to designate, to feed the tree, to mulch it, keep it moist, and protect it from being bumped by uh children, play toys, wagons, all those kinds of things.
55:42
SPEAKER_02: Those are all you know, they're all uh they're all part of making it function because there are few things as as you start into this, uh there are a few things that are uh that are as gratifying as as free ranging food on your own place.
56:01
SPEAKER_02: You'll be able to go out there.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, these apple trees, we've got, they're I mean, like I say, they're probably close to 30 years old now, and they you know, they'll produce um 10 five to ten bushels each tree a year.
56:20
SPEAKER_02: That's a lot of, I mean, you know, we've got a big crew here at the farm last year.
56:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh, the whole crew here, we had we had all the fresh apples we wanted for I'm gonna say three months for everybody to have as many apples as they wanted, you know, from just a couple of trees.
56:39
SPEAKER_02: So uh it's a lot better to have fewer trees well taken care of than a lot of trees not taken care of.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
56:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
56:51
SPEAKER_02: So I I would I would definitely put my attention, put your attention on just four or five at the most, six trees.
56:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, and and one of the things that we do when we plant our apple trees, we planted several varieties so they ripen at different times of the season.
57:07
SPEAKER_02: So you got an early variety, middle, and then late.
57:10
SPEAKER_02: And that way you get, you know, you get uh different kinds.
57:13
SPEAKER_02: And I would be I would be remiss if I didn't encourage people about mulberries.
57:19
SPEAKER_02: Of all the things that we planted, mulberries have been our most exciting one.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: Number one, they have no pests.
57:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean nothing.
57:27
SPEAKER_02: Nothing affects, whereas, you know, apples can get scab and they can get curl, they can get numerous things.
57:33
SPEAKER_02: Mulberries are just bulletproof.
57:37
SPEAKER_02: They uh they they they grow like crazy.
57:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, the only thing that gets mulberries is birds, but they're so prolific you can share them with the birds, or you can cover them with bird net if you want to.
57:50
SPEAKER_02: But um mulberries, domestic mulberries make, you know, a great big, it's oh goodness, you know, big uh two-inch, two-inch succulent.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: And your kids will come in, you know, when you say get caught red-handed, uh, that's what this is about.
58:06
SPEAKER_02: They come in completely covered with red, their mouths are red, their fingers are red uh from eating the mulberries.
58:12
SPEAKER_02: But um, there are a few things that they're the most consistent, easy keeper that we've ever done.
58:20
SPEAKER_02: And we like I said, we have plums.
58:22
SPEAKER_02: Plums are a little bit fragile, they're really prone to Japanese beetles and things like that.
58:27
SPEAKER_02: Um pawpaws are wonderful, but they're very, very prone to frost.
58:32
SPEAKER_02: In fact, um, you know, we we we had to we had to replant.
58:36
SPEAKER_02: We lost the first planting of pawpaws.
58:39
SPEAKER_02: Now they're doing really, really great.
58:41
SPEAKER_02: Uh pears are real hardy, apples, but mulberry, mulberry is just bulletproof.
58:48
SPEAKER_01: So uh now I want that.
58:50
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm thinking of that nursery rhyme with the mulberries to put around the mulberry bush.
58:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
58:57
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
58:57
unknown: Yeah.
58:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, and we've run out of time, but um, my last question is when you walked us through these steps, we were using a tree as an example.
59:06
SPEAKER_01: Would this pretty much be the same if I was gonna plant like a like a blueberry bush?
59:12
SPEAKER_01: Like I know you mentioned the exception with the blueberries in terms of the sun exposure, but all these subsequent steps, yeah, same thing.
59:22
SPEAKER_01: Same thing.
59:23
SPEAKER_02: They're very vulnerable.
59:24
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people literally just keep a a bird net cloach, which keeps the deer out, the rabbits out, just kind of make a a simple uh canopy cloach over their blueberries.
59:36
SPEAKER_02: Yes, a lot of people do that.
59:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
59:41
SPEAKER_01: Wow, I'm glad we did this one early because I didn't realize I had to prep the soil, you know, the prep its bed.
59:49
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to, but it definitely it definitely you you know you can you can get it up and running quicker and better if you if you prep the hole, you know, before you before you go.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay, any before we close out, any final thoughts?
1:00:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and our community question.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so um, so I would just ask, um, if you have plant it, if you have planted fruit trees, um what's been your most satisfying uh whatever experience, variety, you know, uh what's been your most uh exciting aspect of of um planting a fruit tree?
1:00:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh okay.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_01: Next spring I'll be able to answer that question.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there you go.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, this has been wonderful, as always, Joel.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for sharing this advice.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: And if anybody has pictures of as they plant their trees and pictures of existing trees, load that onto our Discord page, which we have recently got put up.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_01: So I'd love to see that.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: Let's share this, you know, this excitement and maybe help encourage each other and keep us motivated to venture out and plant some trees.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: All right, we have enjoyed this and we'll see you next week.