Planning the Backyard Orchard

Winter Gardening Tasks

• Plant flowering dogwoods, tulip magnolias, Japanese maples, and other specimen plants available at nurseries.
• Prune fruit trees, grapes, berries, and ornamental trees this month.
• Attend a pruning class and sharpen your shears before starting.
• Start spring flowers and vegetables from seeds on your windowsill (e.g., pansies, snapdragons, broccoli, cabbage, and lettuces).
• Plant young blueberry bushes in a rich, acidic bed prepared with peat moss.

Planning the Backyard Orchard

Whether you have 20 acres or a quarter-acre, you can grow fruit-bearing trees for delicious, tree-ripened fruit and a sense of accomplishment.

Choosing a Location

• Select a spot with maximum summer sun to help fruit ripen in a short season.
• Avoid planting fruit trees in the vegetable garden due to root competition and shade, which reduces garden productivity.
• Plant early-blooming fruit trees (e.g., apricots, plums, peaches) on a north slope or north side of a building to delay blooming and improve harvest chances.
• Ensure good drainage, especially for stone fruits (cherries, peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines), which cannot tolerate standing water.

Tree Size and Spacing

• Standard apple and pear trees should be spaced 20 feet apart.
• Semi-dwarf trees can be spaced 12–15 feet apart.
• In a 100 ft × 100 ft area, you could plant 25 standard trees or 50–65 semi-dwarf trees.
• Dwarf trees can be planted in hedgerows 4 feet apart for space efficiency but require more care.
• Standard trees can be kept smaller with summer and winter pruning if space is limited.

Variety Selection for Extended Harvest

• Cherries ripen first (early June), followed by apricots, plums, peaches, and pluots (varying by variety through summer).
• Apples and pears ripen from late August through fall.
• Persimmons ripen around Thanksgiving.
• With careful planning, you can harvest fresh fruit over a six-month period.

Crop Consistency

Not all fruit trees bear fruit every year due to spring weather conditions. Apricots, peaches, and plums are particularly vulnerable, while apples and pears have variable yields. Plant enough trees to ensure surplus in good years and sufficient harvest in bad years.