Backyard Orchard Culture

Want a fruit orchard, but are limited for space?

We have the solution. It is called “Backyard Orchard Culture”

Commercial orchards have standard size fruit trees that grow to 20’ high or more, and produce hundreds of pounds of fruit. Large trees like these not only take up a lot of space, but demand a great deal of time and materials for maintenance.

Do you need hundreds of pounds of apples? How many pies can you bake and eat? Let’s talk about semi-dwarf fruit trees that normally grow to one-half to two-thirds the size of standard sizes. Let’s keep these semi-dwarf s pruned to six to eight feet high. Now we can plant three or four trees in the same space as one standard, and we have trees that are easy to maintain and harvest. If we want successive ripening, no sweat! We can have peaches ripening in June, July and August with plenty of fruit for our family and a neighbor or two without the waste of excess fruit rotting on the ground. We can plant our trees in rows or make a hedge of them; we can even plant multi combo trees that have 3 or 4 different fruits on one tree!

The Golden Gecko offers a free guide to “Backyard Orchard Culture” available for the asking. Stop by and get yours today!

Read more about Gourmet Fruit...

Now is the time for one last application of dormant spray on our fruit trees and shrubs. It’s called dormant spray because we apply it when our plants are asleep for the winter, without leaves. We have to spray to prevent diseases and insects from attacking our plants come spring. We recommend an application of Lily-Miller Polysul Dormant spray. This product will kill diseases hiding on the tree. If you mix it with Lily-Miller Horticultural Oil we can kill insects over wintering on the tree also. Hurry, as we must finish spraying before the tree blossoms in the spring.

Gecko Gab  January, 2005