Yesterday, I got a catalog from Stark Brothers, a fruit grower, and spent several hours drooling over the different varieties of fruit trees. We plan to get started on our orchard this spring. This is going to get rather complicated, because each of the varieties of apples has certain others that do the best job pollinating it, yet some varieties don't pollinate others at all. I think I need to come up with some sort of a graphical representation of all the different relationships in order to sort out which varieties will be the best for us. Also, black raspberries are supposed to be planted at least 75 feet away from blackberries and red, gold, or purple raspberries. Since all of the wild brambles in our forest are black raspberries, all of the other kinds will need to be planted well away from the forest.
I also need to research planting density requirements for the various species, so I can plan how to arrange all of them. I want to design a permaculture-based layout, mixing up the trees, bushes, brambles, and low-lying fruits in an efficient and visually pleasing manner. I definitely need to check the Permaculture book out from the library again.
solstice letter
6 days ago
2 comments:
We got our Stark Brothers catalog too! I love their trees. Most all we have planted (that we ordered, as opposed to ones we grew ourselves from seed) are from Stark.
If you have any questions/issues about that whole planning/species thing you are working on, talk with my son. He is really a genius in that area and has done TONS of research. (as I'm sure you have too!)
I'm glad to hear that you've had good experiences with Stark Bros. Their catalog looks amazing, but appearances can be deceiving.
After I have a chance to look through the Permaculture book and come up with some designs of my own, I'd definitely enjoy bouncing ideas back and forth with your son.
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