Fruit Trees in Small Scale Swales

I am getting ready to plant my first set of fruit trees. My husband and I just purchased a house with a large lot (0.78 acres) in Western PA (6b) and want to do significant gardening and growing of fruit. I like a lot of permaculture ideas, but have a hard time with the chaos that ensues (we're not doing a full scale food forest) and I don't think the neighbors would appreciate it. The property is mostly level, has some large maple trees, and has a very slight northern slope, but is largely flat. Like most soil here it is predominantly clay.

This is a somewhat modified fruit tree guild layout. My plan is to do a line of fish scale swales along the Southern and Northern borders of the properties (where there is full sun) and plant apple, pear, and peach trees. I intend to plant the trees on the berm, mulch with compost and woodchips, and add a tree wrap for protection. For the first year I will have buckets next to each tree with a small hole in it to slowly water the trees as needed.  On the berm I am also going to plant strawberries, various herbs, pollinator mix flowers, as well as a gooseberry and a currant plant. I'm hoping to propagate these and have more bushes in future years.

I'd appreciate any advice that you all have! I know fruit trees love to die, and expect some to not make it, but I want to set them up for success.

We are also planning on planting raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries. From what I can tell it is not recommended to plant these with young fruit trees due to the spreading nature of brambles and soil pH needs of blueberries.

Other plans, if you're interested and have advice:
-Set up a rainwater catchment using our roof and a food grade IBC tote
-Put in a large garden using no dig principles (I will do a light initial till due to time contraints)
-Plant a sterile comfrey plant for comfrey tea
-Set up in a 3-4 bay composting system
-Add chickens for eggs, beautiful compost, and garden bug control.

Exciting times!  It sounds like you have a good idea of where to start and some good knowledge on the systems.

One thing I would caution you on will be space. That's a large lot for having neighbors, but once you start planting trees and their required pollinators you'll start eating into your space.  You can grow under trees, but the majority of production garden foods won't do well.  I have shy of 7 acres and am having to plan my space out to make sure I don't mess up with plans for the future.  I recommend drawing out a map of your property and where you want to plant/build what over the next 5 years.  Think about where the shadows will fall once the trees are full grown.  This process helped me winnow away at the things I wanted to do to make a feasible plan that I'm still following some 6 years later (with adjustments).

Get to tapping those maple trees sooner rather than later.  There's a learning curve, but your property is already producing delicious calories and great sweetener alternative.

Start looking for Food Grade IBC totes.  You'll probably be able to find a farm, manufacturing plant, or food processing plant that throws there's away.  20 minutes with a sprayer and soap and you can have a good tote for free.

Gooseberries and currants are lovely, and in he OP's colder (than mine) climate, they should do well.  I've tried different varieties, but they are all yummy.  Better than me attempting to translate my experience in the South to Pennsylvania, find local advice on good varieties if you can.

I've never had success with strawberries, so can't offer advice there.

Yes, you may want to segregate your blueberries to one corner where they can modify the soil chemistry to their singular liking.

Lots of herbs and wildflowers are always nice.  Focus on perennial herbs where you can - sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme, mint.  But also basil is always a big crowd pleaser.  I've found Thai basil grows stronger and bushier than Italian types.

As for cane fruit, I wouldn't necessarily hesitate to guild those with my fruit trees.  Just be aware that, if they really thrive, they will indeed spread and you may need to actively chop back or even uproot the edges of their colony if they stray too far.  But hey, we should all be that lucky, right?  Blackberries now have thornless primocane cultivars available, so you can grow them like "mowed primocane" raspberries.  I have recently planted some such blackberry varieties, so too early to report on progress, but I've seen the system work well with raspberries.  This is a good technique for keeping cane fruits more tidy looking, which sounds like the OP may appreciate.

In case anyone doesn't know...  Cane fruits usually grow first year canes called primocanes that are barren.  They grow tall and sprawl all over, rooting (called "layering") wherever they touch ground.  The next year, new primocanes shoot up and last year's canes, now called floricanes, set flowers, fruit, and then die.  So, a forever two-year cycle of growing and replacing canes that creates an expanding, very wild looking patch.

Primocane-bearing varieties, however, do just that: they set a late crop on their first year canes as well as a summer crop on last year's canes.  You can either 1) enjoy two crops for the price of one; or 2) grow in the manner I recommend and referenced above - prune the tops of new primocanes at 3' to 4' to encourage fruiting side shoots and to keep them from sprawling (a variety with a more upright growth habit will facilitates this).  Late in the autumn, after primocanes have fruited and died back, mow them to the ground.  Repeat this process every year, so that you never get floricanes; only fresh crops of new, shorter, upright, fruiting primocanes.  In doing so, you sacrifice the floricane crop, but you get a more contained, easier to manage cane fruit patch.

If you can, consider burying your IBC rainwater catchment.  It will be out of your way and you can draw water with a hose and pump.  That is what I now wish I had done.

I prefer composting in place whenever possible - look up "Ruth Stout style composting" - but you do you.

I have had great success with sterile comfrey, but be aware it is a deer magnet.  It is often the only thing on my property they browse.  And it will thrive in partial shade, but I've had comfrey die back where it gets too shady.

As always, I recommend goumi berry bushes.  Great permaculture plants that have done well by me - foolproof, vigorous, impervious to pests, nitrogen-fixing, extremely productive.  But if they really thrive they will grow taller than your typical dwarf-to-semidwarf tree.  So, consider planting them as a "tree" in your food forest layout, rather than an accompanying bush.  Or prepare to prune them back severely.  Named cultivars are definitely worth it.

Hey Sarah, this is a wonderful concept, and it sounds like a lot of thought has gone into your planning.  I have a 6 year old food 1/8 acre food forest, and similar to your vision, I like to keep mine "manicured."  A few thoughts that I had are as follows:

- Here in Virginia, we have issues with cedar-apple rust (CAR).  Assuming this is also an issue where you live, look for CAR resistant apple varieties.  
- I have also had issues with fire blight infecting my methley plum and Asian pear tree.  Be vigilant of this disease.
- Be sure to space your trees and shrubs properly and leave lots of room for growth.  Spacing your plants too closely when putting them in the ground is an all too common mistake that people make.
- I am using Bocking #4 sterile comfrey as a border around the edge of my food forest.  It seems to do a pretty decent job in keeping grass and weeds from creeping into the mulched areas.  Every spring I try to go around and divide some of the comfrey and keep spreading it around the edge.  Even a little root fragment can grow into a new plant.  
- Strawberries are proving to be a great ground cover in my garden.  Other reliable groundcover/herbacious plants in my garden are bergamont, mountain mint, yarrow, oregano, lemonbalm, catnip and valerian.
- I opted for thornless blackberries, and I'm glad that I did.  These are much less painful to weed and mulch around
- You may want to consider a patch of elderberries.  I enjoy growing these and they are disease/pest free.  They DO spread over time.  

It sounds like you are planning to undertake many of the same permaculture/homesteading activities that we started doing when we moved to our "piece of paradise" 7 years ago.  It's definitely a labor of love.  Good luck!!

P.S. - you can never have too much cardboard and mulch!

for the clay soil, use M-111 rootstock for your apples.   they will perform best for you.   also, if there is the slightest chance you will have deer pressure,  make a 6' diameter cage around the trees with at least 2 stakes to hold in place. 3 is better. 48" high.   consider adding some paw paw trees.   check out the Back Yard Fruit Growers  at BYFG.ORG

Mac Johnson wrote:One thing I would caution you on will be space. That's a large lot for having neighbors, but once you start planting trees and their required pollinators you'll start eating into your space.  You can grow under trees, but the majority of production garden foods won't do well.  I have shy of 7 acres and am having to plan my space out to make sure I don't mess up with plans for the future.  I recommend drawing out a map of your property and where you want to plant/build what over the next 5 years.  Think about where the shadows will fall once the trees are full grown.  This process helped me winnow away at the things I wanted to do to make a feasible plan that I'm still following some 6 years later (with adjustments).

Excellent advice.  I had to move a lot of earth when building my home, so I started by clearing native forest from all but the edges of my property.  I saved a few original trees in the central area, which at the time were my only shade, but which since have all grown too large and have been removed.  In those early days of a vast, open, mud expanse, I was eager to plant lots of stuff.  Anything to get some shelter for the soil from the sun and rain.  I still habitually call my food forest "the meadow" dating from that period.  14 years later, it is all about fighting for light.  If I had it all to do over, I might do many things differently, but for sure one would be to space the large tree-like elements further apart, especially considering that many of the "bushes" I planted in between would grow as tall as the trees.

As always, I'm going to highly recommend the book  Tree Crops by H. Russel Smith:

https://soilandhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/01aglibrary/010175.tree%20crops.pdf

An old book but still some of the best advice around.

I'll give you sort of a TL;DR....

https://permies.com/t/38977/Tree-Crops-Russell-Smith

I would avoid the brambles.  Instead of blackberries, how about a Gerardi Mulberry?  It is a shrub form that gets to be 6-10' tall and is well-behaved.  Instead of thorny and caned raspberries--one of my favorite fruits, but didn't plant because of the issues, how about Bushel and Berry 'Raspberry Shortcake'--these get to be maybe 3' mounds.  They do send runners, but they are thornless and very easy to maintain and are attractive.  You get more plants, so you don't have to start with a lot.

I have 40 blueberries, which is way too many!  They have been very fruitful over the years, so I have lots of friends come pick and take what they harvest! A few years ago, I added pelletized sulfur and they seemed to really appreciate that.

I did use my front yard to plant my food forest because it has the best southern exposure.  I mainly planted the taller things (trees) on the northern edges, with things descending in height toward the south.  Near the sidewalk, I planted perennials, herbs and a row of Regent serviceberries as a border so people and dogs couldn't easily enter.  I did put an arbor in the middle of the 120' length so that people could come into the yard that way, and I've found that that break was extremely helpful--especially for me when I'm working out there!  

I have cherries and persimmons on the northern side, but interspersed among other plants, I have paw paws, dwarf apples, figs, then lots of bush-type plants: currants, rhubarb, honeyberry, etc. and I've used strawberries as my groundcover.  Behind the serviceberry shrubs near the front, I planted asparagus.  It's not the most attractive plant when in its spear stage, and I wanted the serviceberry to act as a support for the fern stage.  That has worked beautifully, although the ferns are up to 8' tall, which I wasn't expecting!  I planted pink climbing roses on the arbor so that it would be recognizable to most.  

Some of the more unruly things are out back.  Elderberry, which often tries to creep out into the lawn...Heartnuts, which could perhaps cause a painful bonk on the head to passersby on the sidewalk, More paw paws and persimmons....I have to say that all of the gardens are neat and tidy looking and change throughout the year with the addition of bulbs and mushrooms, along with bloom times, fruit and leaf color and shape.

The front needed to be a well-behaved garden, as I don't like to be "on display" when out working on the garden.  It really does not require much input from me at all. The perennials also serve a purpose: pollinator attractor like yarrow or borage that self-seeds, pest-confusers like garlic and daffodils, native color like asters and penstemon , medicine like many herbs, nitrogen fixers...you get the idea.

The majority of time is in harvesting and prepping the food.  It is a surprising amount of time each day.  Just strawberries alone require about 3+ hours a day l filled my freezer with strawberries and blueberries.  I've made rhubarb roll-ups along with currant roll-ups in the dehydrator, and have freeze dried many many gallons of strawberries and cooked blueberries, mushrooms, whatever.  You will want to get at least one of these: a dehydrator, extra freezer, canning equipment or a freeze-dryer.  Last night, as I was deciding between canned peaches or applesauce, I had to smile, reflecting back on doing the work so that I could enjoy such wonders!

I ended up putting blueberries and raspberries in their own area. My yard is long and narrow.my garden was along the lot line, the sunniest spot  in our northwoods area. The neighbor rebuilt and regraded so his water all runs our way. Thought extra moisture was good. Reality it leached nutrients from the sandy and closer to that edge more plants struggled. Solution to both sand or clay is more compost. An expert from Grit magazine suggested a berm along that north lot line. I dug a trench, burried woody debri and half rotten logs to catch and hold moisture then covered with compost and soil. Planted a variety of shrubs and small trees, honeyberries need less acid soil, are shallow rooted and tolerate a little shade, aronia is very hardy and tolerates both wet and drought. Saskatatoon is new to me and has been tucked in. Hardy roses (tied to fence) All are more well behaved The shrub border also helps difuse cold air drai ing down hill and reflects heat from the south. Im trying to eliminate the few raspberries i had let in. Too aggressive and spread and grab at me when working in a long narrow space. I have to have 6 foot fences around everything because of deer. Sometimes even that is t enough. Keep spaces looking full. If they see someplace to land, they will jump 6 '. We had several did that  in our berry garden and when i startled walking past in the dark some jumped out, some kicked at the gate till they smashed it down. The best thing I  did for my veggies was to start raising rabbitts. (Not in garden unless they're  caged) their droppings are the only manure safe to add directlly to your veggies. Ive read to consider them little pellets of peat a d slow release fertilizer. You can compost all your weeds and tree trimings in a year in a pile or in a day thru a rabbit.  50 years of gardening and still learning.  Enjoy your adventure!