The Orchard in the Suburbs

I know many of you know that I am on this adventure to eat as healthy as possible.. I shop organic whenever I can but as you have probably noticed, organic costs more money and I am also challenged to be as frugal as possible and extend our grocery dollars.  So the dilemma continues.  After picking 200 pounds of apples last month from a neighbor's tree, we decided to invest in our own orchard in our little back yard.

We bought 8 fruit trees to put in our yard and I have been researching and studying what to do to make sure they are healthy and thrive to bear us fruit.  I can't imagine how awesome it will be to go to my own backyard and pick a ripe Fuji Apple, Honey Crisp Apple, Bartlett Pear, Anjou Pear, Frost Peach, Polly Peach, Lapins Cherry, or Royalton Cherry from the tree.  I will know it is organic, fresh, and healthy!!

Here is a picture of our little trees in our suburban back yard.  We have a fenced yard so hope to keep most critters from them but already today I had to run to Menards and buy those little white plastic tree protectors because some critter has been gnawing the bark from the bottoms, close to the ground.  They are a little close together so I hope to learn a lot about pruning before they get too big but what adventure would it be if I already knew everything?  FAR FROM IT!

You can see the six of them to the south of the deck and there are 2 more to the north of the deck.   We have not mulched them yet before winter and I was told to put a balanced fertilizer on them right after all the leaves fall off this fall and again in the spring.  They will hopefully have enough sun and I give them a deep watering twice a week.  The rest is up to mother nature. 

The swingset in the middle of the yard is about shot and my daughter is done playing on it, as she is growing up fast, so we have decided to by grape vines and grow them on the swingset like a trellis.  Should be interesting. I will share that adventure next summer!

So if you would say a prayer for my little trees please!  I really know very little about growing any kind of tree so I need all the help I can get!