I love fruit. I really love never buying eggs or meat at the grocery store. Someday, I would love to stop buying fruit at the grocery store. To that end, I am planning on growing as many of my favorite fruits as I can. Alas, I have very limited experience with gardening as myself and everyone in my family are more livestock people. So I need some help (recommendations for classes or YouTubers to watch also welcome).
I’ve attached a map of the property divided into zones for explanation. For reference, I am in zone 4A, about 15-20” of annual precip. I’m *mostly* looking for help identifying which of the main species I plan to grow will thrive in which spot, however, I’m not limiting this to strictly species on my list of desired fruits. I plan to do some guilding as well, so helpful ideas for what to plant in the guild are also welcome, and if there’s a harvest of some sort from those plants, that’s great, but the top priority for the guild planting is support for my trees/shrubs.
I’m also doing this slowly, about 2-4 trees per year, for budget and time reasons.
The long list of species I would like to try is:
Apple, plum, cherry (I plan to try the hardy “romance series” from university of Saskatchewan), raspberry, strawberry, haskap, grape, hazelnut, and blackberry (variety selection help please…anyone has success with Doyle’s Thornless?).
Zone A will be the main “orchard” space. It is full sun except on the far south end which will receive some shade from the green shop, mostly in the morning. I believe it’s still considered “full sun” though going by the hours of sunlight received there in summer. It has a very moderate slope and clay soil. Our native soil also tends to be slightly alkaline. I’ve indicated on the map where the 4 apple trees, 2 plums, and 4 cherries will be located. Initially I had planned to build a fence at least on the east side, just past the trees’ mature diameter, and use it as a trellis for the grapes. However, I’m concerned that this may not be the best location for grapes, and it also may be too close to my trees to be planting them. The main goals for this space are 1) food production 2) windbreak, prevailing wind from the west. Although I want to be careful just how good of a windbreak I make so I don’t catch too much snow on the west side of the trees, right in a path that we occasionally need to drive. This zone can also be extended to the north along the west side of the house.
Zone B is the south side of a white heated shop. This soil should be the best drained. There is a small flat area right next to the shop and then a relatively steep drop. This space will receive significant extra moisture from the roof of the shop, and the area will warm much earlier in the spring and stay warmer later in fall due to the southern exposure, but it could get extremely hot there in the summer, so I’m not sure what would be best suited here. Maybe none of my main species of interest.
Zone C should function mainly as a windbreak. I’m thinking possibly of cottonwoods, with juneberry or hazelnut as a shrubby layer. I’m not sure if the hazelnut will thrive in my environment without some irrigation though, so perhaps that is best placed near the house where I can easily set up a water catchment? There is no option to irrigate in zone c.
Zones D and E are bonus zones. I’m not dead set on having any these plants there, but they are options if they are the perfect spot for something. Zone D would have some shade available from the afternoon sun via the grain bins. Zone E is the north side of the house so obviously the shadiest spot.
Thoughts on what to put where?
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Diagram of property
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South side of white shop. Wagon and dog house can be removed