Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

Blazin · Jan 23, 2022

Foler said:
Thinking of planting some fruit trees. Curious if any of you do? I already have some hugeee walnut trees on my property. Thinking of following fruits that I believe I can source versions of that will grow in my area of Florida - orange, avocado, lychee, peach. I’m very new to this so doing a ton of research. Also think I found some walnut trees that’ll grow in my area but require cross pollination from a different species so a tiny more complicated.

Also thinking of gardening veggies however not sure how to protect that shit from my ample deer/bears/etc other than maybe a greenhouse.

We are planting Apple and Peach trees this spring, it's a rather long wait till they will grow up and be productive but you have lots more options down in FL then I have in PA in regards to fruit trees. I'd stick to species you'll actually make use of.

lurkingdirk · Jan 23, 2022

Foler said:
Thinking of planting some fruit trees. Curious if any of you do? I already have some hugeee walnut trees on my property. Thinking of following fruits that I believe I can source versions of that will grow in my area of Florida - orange, avocado, lychee, peach. I’m very new to this so doing a ton of research. Also think I found some walnut trees that’ll grow in my area but require cross pollination from a different species so a tiny more complicated.

Also thinking of gardening veggies however not sure how to protect that shit from my ample deer/bears/etc other than maybe a greenhouse.

I have fruit trees. Four kinds of apples, two kinds of pears, peaches, cherry, and Asian pears. I also have several varieties of raspberries, and a tonne of strawberries. When the trees were young I put a 6' fence around each tree. They're all mature now, and the animals mostly leave the alone. I have about 1/2 acre of vegetable garden, too. I have an 8' fence around it - bottom 4 feet is chicken wire, top 4 is wire ropes to keep the deer out. Works like a charm. Fence was expensive to put up, though. But we grow enough produce that we rarely have to buy it. I also built a cold cellar in our basement, so we can keep stuff good for a long time.

BrutulTM · Jan 23, 2022

Not from personal experience but I've heard you don't want the fruit trees right next to your house if you can avoid it. They attract a lot of bugs, especially wasps when there is fruit rotting on the ground.

lurkingdirk · Jan 23, 2022

BrutulTM said:
Not from personal experience but I've heard you don't want the fruit trees right next to your house if you can avoid it. They attract a lot of bugs, especially wasps when there is fruit rotting on the ground.

This is absolutely true, and that's why my orchard is a good walk away from the house.

Captain Suave · Jan 23, 2022

Foler said:
avocado

Make sure you plant a mature avocado or get a clipping from one. My in-laws grew from a seed only to discover that they take 10-20 years to fruit.

Foler · Jan 23, 2022

lurkingdirk said:
I have fruit trees. Four kinds of apples, two kinds of pears, peaches, cherry, and Asian pears. I also have several varieties of raspberries, and a tonne of strawberries. When the trees were young I put a 6' fence around each tree. They're all mature now, and the animals mostly leave the alone. I have about 1/2 acre of vegetable garden, too. I have an 8' fence around it - bottom 4 feet is chicken wire, top 4 is wire ropes to keep the deer out. Works like a charm. Fence was expensive to put up, though. But we grow enough produce that we rarely have to buy it. I also built a cold cellar in our basement, so we can keep stuff good for a long time.

Any huge issues with disease/insects killing your fruit trees?

Foler · Jan 23, 2022

BrutulTM said:
Not from personal experience but I've heard you don't want the fruit trees right next to your house if you can avoid it. They attract a lot of bugs, especially wasps when there is fruit rotting on the ground.

Heard they attract rats too. Think I got enough critters to eat rats tho

Foler · Jan 23, 2022

Captain Suave said:
Make sure you plant a mature avocado or get a clipping from one. My in-laws grew from a seed only to discover that they take 10-20 years to fruit.

Holyyy hell. Yeah I was looking at some trees. I don’t have 10-20 years.
Edit - just found 6-8ft avo trees locally that will allegedly bear fruit this season . $675 a pop.

Foler · Jan 23, 2022

lurkingdirk forgot to ask what’s your irrigation setup for all this? Well with centrifugal pump? City water? Did you install it yourself? Etc.

thanks

Foler · Jan 23, 2022

Blazin said:
We are planting Apple and Peach trees this spring, it's a rather long wait till they will grow up and be productive but you have lots more options down in FL then I have in PA in regards to fruit trees. I'd stick to species you'll actually make use of.

Same question for you blazin regarding irrigation. What’s your irrigation setup and did you do it yourself?

thanks

Lanx · Jan 23, 2022

Foler said:
Holyyy hell. Yeah I was looking at some trees. I don’t have 10-20 years.
Edit - just found 6-8ft avo trees locally that will allegedly bear fruit this season . $675 a pop.

i have no idea why i watched this years ago, but it's info

lurkingdirk · Jan 23, 2022

Foler said:
Any huge issues with disease/insects killing your fruit trees?

No, not really. I don't spray pesticides, and my fruit isn't beautiful like the kind you get at the grocery store, it has tree rubs on it and such, but it's so delicious. But I don't have disease issues at all, and very little insect issues. Lots of bees in the fall when the fruit starts falling, but I try to pick early so I don't have a lot of ground fruit. My grounders I make into apple sauce or jam or whatever.

As far as irrigation, I went a little overboard. I have two wells on my property, one for the house, one for everything else (outbuildings, irrigation, etc.). I buried the lines four feet deep to avoid frost issues and to make it impossible to hit with the rototiller. In my vegetable garden I have sprinkler heads that are between 1 and 6 feet high, depending on what I'm planting in that area. They're painted a bright red so I never hit them with the tractor or rototiller. In my orchard it is the same thing, except all those sprinkler heads disappear into the ground so mowing is easy. I put the irrigation in before the trees, no issues with roots that way, and it's ready to go for watering when I did put the trees in. I have two systems with 9 zones each. The garden runs irrigation in the morning, the orchard in the afternoon. The control junctions for those are in my wood working shop, which is insulated and heated so it never freezes.

It has taken me a decade to get everything to where it is today. Totally worth it.

Foler · Jan 23, 2022

lurkingdirk said:
No, not really. I don't spray pesticides, and my fruit isn't beautiful like the kind you get at the grocery store, it has tree rubs on it and such, but it's so delicious. But I don't have disease issues at all, and very little insect issues. Lots of bees in the fall when the fruit starts falling, but I try to pick early so I don't have a lot of ground fruit. My grounders I make into apple sauce or jam or whatever.

As far as irrigation, I went a little overboard. I have two wells on my property, one for the house, one for everything else (outbuildings, irrigation, etc.). I buried the lines four feet deep to avoid frost issues and to make it impossible to hit with the rototiller. In my vegetable garden I have sprinkler heads that are between 1 and 6 feet high, depending on what I'm planting in that area. They're painted a bright red so I never hit them with the tractor or rototiller. In my orchard it is the same thing, except all those sprinkler heads disappear into the ground so mowing is easy. I put the irrigation in before the trees, no issues with roots that way, and it's ready to go for watering when I did put the trees in. I have two systems with 9 zones each. The garden runs irrigation in the morning, the orchard in the afternoon. The control junctions for those are in my wood working shop, which is insulated and heated so it never freezes.

It has taken me a decade to get everything to where it is today. Totally worth it.

Thanks. I had an electrician connect by 50 year old centrifugal well pump to power a few days ago and got nothing. Hoping there’s a way to tell if the well is still good prior to replacing pump. Well is closer to house and not exactly close to my field but at one point irrigation was ran up there.

this well is in a shingle roofed shed - what I don’t want is to end up having to remove the roof to fix a well that isn’t even in an ideal location. If well is bad then I’ll have a new one put up in the field.

lurkingdirk · Jan 23, 2022

Foler said:
Thanks. I had an electrician connect by 50 year old centrifugal well pump to power a few days ago and got nothing. Hoping there’s a way to tell if the well is still good prior to replacing pump. Well is closer to house and not exactly close to my field but at one point irrigation was ran up there.

this well is in a shingle roofed shed - what I don’t want is to end up having to remove the roof to fix a well that isn’t even in an ideal location. If well is bad then I’ll have a new one put up in the field.

Get one of those pumps you attach to your drill, drop a hose in your well and pump out some water and see how it is. The pumps are cheap, something like this:

Amazon product ASIN B00F1ZJG5E
Then you can at least tell if your well is producing water, if the water is potable, and all that.

LachiusTZ · Jan 23, 2022

We put in 5' and 6' pecan trees 7 years ago, got maybe a dozen pecans last year.

Prolly another few years before there is much there.

Peach trees took just a few years to start having huge peaches.

Just depends, but for pecans its taking a while.

Foler · Jan 23, 2022

lurkingdirk said:
Get one of those pumps you attach to your drill, drop a hose in your well and pump out some water and see how it is. The pumps are cheap, something like this:

Amazon product ASIN B00F1ZJG5E
Then you can at least tell if your well is producing water, if the water is potable, and all that.

Good idea. The copper piping to the well is all seized up. I’ll go out tomorrow morning and look at just cutting it I guess. Imagine I can find a cap for it at HD temporarily.

Foler · Jan 23, 2022

LachiusTZ said:
We put in 5' and 6' pecan trees 7 years ago, got maybe a dozen pecans last year.

Prolly another few years before there is much there.

Peach trees took just a few years to start having huge peaches.

Just depends, but for pecans its taking a while.

Pecans you got cross pollinate I read. What combo are you growing?

LachiusTZ · Jan 23, 2022

I think we have 4 types now?

Pawnee, delicious, and some others I can't remember

Foler · Jan 24, 2022

LachiusTZ said:
I think we have 4 types now?

Pawnee, delicious, and some others I can't remember

Jealous.

So I think I know where I’m gonna put the garden. Sits on a bit of a slope so I’ll terrace it a little. Start really small - if I can get it up this and running this month I’ll plant tomatoes and peppers.

Went to take a look in the field to get an idea of where to put fruit trees. Field is a little misleading a term I guess - it still has trees in it but it’s not dense forests. No really great place up there to line fruit trees up all neatly. Regardless gonna test soil and I think try one hass avocado tree (found a place that has mature ones) and also one other type of fruit tree.

It’ll just be a year of learning and testing. Once I get the kinks worked out expand the garden next year etc.

Tree prices are interesting.. Was really surprised how cheap you can get 14-20 ft cedars and bald Cyprus $1000-2000. Then I was clicking around same tree farms website- they have a to of different palms. Found these beautiful senegal date palms - 17.5k for a group of 6 trunks.. whew boy! Also dig the canary date palms.

Our Tree Store

You can count on quality and beauty with The Tree Planters. Order your tree online. If you don't see the tree you want, contact us today.

thetreeplanters.com

Trying to keep the environment around the house/property “natural looking”. I.E. Florida looking - not some elaborate landscaped piece with exotic plants.

Foler · Jan 24, 2022

So I have an area next to my house that has 4-6 palm trees (maybe dwarf palmettos, only like 15 ft high max). Maybe 20x20 area.

I cleaned up around them a year ago. Cut down some trees in the small area. Just tried tordon on the tree stumps (hopefully it won’t kill the palms due to proximity.)

However I have lots of little uhh trees(?) or weeds(?) that shoot up in this little area that I use my stihl fs 560 to mow down every 4-6 months.

I want this stuff to stop growing so it looks more manicured with just the 4-6 palms. I know mulching it should help prevent stuff from growing but I believe I need to get rid of all this small shit before I mulch it. If you look closely at the pic you can see small trees or weeds sprouting up that I’ve cut. Is the best approach to dig up all this shit in this 20x20 area then mulch? Any herbacides that I could spray down that wouldn’t heard my palms due to proximity? You can see trunk of palms in photo.

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