Bart Brinkmann

So my wife and I just bought what we thought would be the perfect 1/3 acre lot. She fell in love with the new house, I fell in love with the huge, unfinished backyard with it's southern exposure and potential for a nice row of espaliered apple trees along the back fence. But alas, after moving in, I spent 5 hours yesterday digging in hard packed clay. I think I only moved around about 2 cubic yards in 5 hours. The lawn will be easy - about 1/4 of the backyard will be lawn; that's the part I leveled yesterday. I'm going to bring in 4 inches of sandy loam + compost mix for the lawn, which will run me about $500. The rest of the yard is going to be dedicated to bushes and fruit trees pruned to a max of 4 feet tall. We're going to build hugel mounds on either side of the lawn and I'm wondering if I can use this clay soil to do it, since it's free and there's a pile of it in the adjacent lot, or if I should try and get a couple dump truck loads of "screened topsoil."

The screened topsoil will run me another few hundred dollars, but I've gotten it before and it's a heck of a lot better than the clay I've got next to me. The other option I was thinking would be to use the clay I've got here and amend it with green mulch from a tree service + nitrogen as I build up the mound, let it cool off until next spring, and then plan on planting in it. I'm not sure if that's something I could pull off in that short amount of time, or if it would even give me very good soil? But money is tight with all of the improvements we want to try and get done, so I thought I'd ask and see what all of you thought?

duane hennon wrote:

Update!!
what has happened since the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhv7kN2DM7k

The Permaculture Orchard: Beyond Organic - Fall 2014 update

I'm glad I found this series! I'll be watching the film this weekend, but watched the update ahead of time. Is this all really done on just 5 acres? I know Oliver shares that they charge a $55/yr membership, but are there anymore details regarding annual income? My wife and I are looking for 5-10 acres, so the idea of being able to turn 5 acres into something this impressive is pretty enticing. I'd need 10 acres if we include our house, shop, greenhouse, etc.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Hau, Bart, sounds like you have a great plan now.

The best way to propagate mountain ash (Sorbus scopulina) is to take cuttings from green wood.
Take cuttings in the spring, after the last frost, that are from the green wood, about 15-20 cm long, strip all of the leaves except the last two or three.
Dip the cuttings in a rooting hormone and then stick the cuttings in moist, warm sand and keep the cuttings warm until the cuttings begin to root.
Rooting may begin as soon as 8 weeks. You can check by gently probing around the cutting.

Thanks Bryant, I wasn't really sure how to check to see if things were working or not. He's cutting the tree down this summer, so I only get one shot with this particular tree. Do I just use fine sand for this, or should I use perlite or vermiculite? To keep them moist, I'm thinking of using an inverted clear plastic tote with a few small vent holes. I'm hoping I can just keep this in a shaded area of the yard under some plants without it getting too warm inside.

Okay, after a lot of research and consideration I've committed to a plan and thought I'd share my decisions. I took John's advice on using this time as a learning experience, but also came up with a couple things that I could bring with me in two years when we find our property. Starting my own seedlings for rootstock just sounded like it would be hit-or-miss and I couldn't find a single professional who recommended it, so I wanted to stick with clonal propagation. It may be a bit slower than starting hundreds or thousands of seedlings, but (1) I don't need that many and (2) I know what I'm going to end up with - and it was a cheap investment for the peace of mind knowing that I've got good roots on the plants I'm going to invest over a decade in. I think it's a good plan, we'll see how it turns out.

1. First, I'm going to start four stool beds for apple rootstock. Two will be EMLA 111 and the other two will be Bud-9. Both will grow well for me here in North Idaho / Eastern Washington and both can be used for either espalier or dwarf/semi-dwarf trees. I've got the rootstocks on the way for $17 shipped. I'll read up a bit more before they get here to see where I need to start with regards to topping them off to get the stool bed going, but by the time I move I should be able to produce around 48 rootstocks or 24 interstems per season just with these four plants (even more if I choose to start more stool beds with these). I should also have a year to practice some bud grafting.

2. My dad has a European Mountain Ash that I've been coveting for quite a while. It produces tons of berries and birds love it. This will be a good addition to my "food forest" for both wild birds and chickens, so this May/June I plan to attempt propagating about 10 of those.

That's it for now - I think I can fly under my wife's radar enough with this small of an undertaking and not disrupt her backyard landscaping too much

Chris French wrote: also I have been a vegan for 15 years.

I feel compelled to ask why you are a vegan. Is it by choice or because of a medical condition? If it's by choice and you truly have an aversion to consuming any animal products, it seems hypocritical to raise an animal that you intend to exploit for food, even if it isn't for your own consumption. Then again, if you're vegan simply because you don't prefer the taste of meat, dairy, etc... then by all means, exploit away.

Jose Reymondez wrote:Just my experience with peach trees. Transplanted year-old peaches in pots as well as transplanting year-old volunteers grew to 2-4 feet tall while directly seeded peach pits got to 5-6 feet in their first year.

So my one-year old directly seeded peaches are twice as tall as my transplanted two-year-old peaches.

So waiting and doing it right can have its advantages.

Thanks Jose,

I agree - I think my time right now is best spent on planning and experimenting where I'm at. I have to reign in my spring fever a little bit and settle with a couple new blueberry bushes that I can maim in an attempt to propagate my first bush

John Wolfram wrote:

Bart Brinkmann wrote:I forgot to ask about production for full-sized rootstock - if I plan to prune pretty vigilantly and keep my trees around 10 -15 feet, how many years should I expect before those trees start producing?

Back in 2010 planted 25 trees from Adams County Nursery. This nursery sells trees that were grafted two years earlier (so add 2 years to these times if you are starting with rootstock, 3 years if you are starting from seed).

The peach trees produced a little bit in 2011, a good crop in 2012, and a really good crop in 2013.
The apples produced a little in 2012, and a decent amount in 2013.
The pears produced a little in 2013 and a pretty good amount in 2014.
I have yet to get a cherry.
I have yet to get a plum from the tree planted in 2010, but in 2013 I got a couple from plum trees planted in 2011.

Thanks John. That makes me think that if I get started grafting a few plants this year, they should be ready to put in the ground in a couple of years. Do you recall what type of rootstock was on your apples?

I found an interesting article on interstem rootstocks that essentially uses a vigorous stock for the root system, then a dwarf stock for the actual "stock" of the tree. It sounds like these trees do better in terms of drought tolerance and they don't need support like a pure dwarf rootstock would need. This sounds like it could be interesting to experiment with.

Source: http://www.orangepippintrees.com/articles/interstem-rootstocks

I forgot to ask about production for full-sized rootstock - if I plan to prune pretty vigilantly and keep my trees around 10 -15 feet, how many years should I expect before those trees start producing?

John Wolfram wrote:

Bart Brinkmann wrote:...From what I read, the larger the apple tree is, the less it might yield?

Cj Verde wrote:That must be out of context. A large apple tree can easily yield 800 lbs as opposed to 32 lbs for a dwarf tree.

In general, the larger the trees you use, the lower your yield is per acre. With full sized apple trees at 40 foot spacings, you can have 27 of those trees per acre yielding 22,000 pounds of apples (800x27). Alternatively, you could plant 1,100 dwarf trees per acre in a tall spindle style and get over 30,000 pounds per acre. Additionally, the full size apple trees would probably take over a decade to get anywhere near 20,000 pounds while the dwarf trees would be producing in a fraction of that time. The flip side is that the full size trees require less initial cost, less maintenance, and will produce for decades after the dwarf trees have died.

That helps quite a bit too. In reading about a lot of the dwarf stock, I had read that those trees are shorter-lived than full-sized trees. Another thing that bothered me was that it sounds like most of the dwarf varieties require some support. I had wondered about pruning to keep them smaller and more manageable - especially since I'm interested in espalier anyway (which will require a whole new type of support, I realize).

With the shorter lifespan of the dwarf rootstock, perhaps a root from seed is better if I plan to espalier it anyway?

So maybe this is a route I can take this spring - start 10-20 apple trees from seed that I can plan on grafting in a couple of years? If I do this, are there specific types of seeds I should start with?

R Scott wrote:Depending on the space you have, you could start hundreds or even thousands of trees in sand beds. A 4x4 foot square foot garden bed can hold over 2000 seedlings.

I'm okay starting seedlings for other varieties, but it sounds like apple trees are't the most ideal to start from seed. I'd rather go with dwarf rootstock so my trees stay small. From what I read, the larger the apple tree is, the less it might yield?

Now that I've looked into it a little more, I'm leaning toward what John said about trying to gain some experience now rather than start a crop of trees. It looks like the dwarf-grafted apple trees start producing pretty quickly too.