Preliminary plans for my COVID-19 orchard [View all]

Work continues on the COVID-19 garden and I'll post an update on that soon. I've had some time to do some research, thinking, measuring and such for the future orchard.

The goal is to maximize the use of space to produce a variety of fruits over as long a time as possible during the growing season. To achieve this, I'll be applying techniques used in the backyard orchard culture movement. BOC is high density planting of several varieties to get successive ripening.

After much measuring and reading, this is what I ought to be able to plant in the remaining part of the backyard that isn't going to be taken up by the vegetable garden.

8 apple trees

4 pear trees

4 plum trees

4 peach trees

1 quince tree

2 elderberry bushes

24 raspberry plants

3 blueberry bushes

4 haskap bushes



The raspberries will be plants on 1 40' row while the blueberry and haskap bushes will be planted on the 40' row to the east of the raspberry row. The trees will be planting in 5 separate groups of 4 18' apart in a 10' square and kept pruned to keep the trees at a height and spread of no more then 8'. The quince tree is self pollinating and will be planted by itself to the northwest of the house. The two elderberry bushes will be planted to the east of the storage shack about 8' from each other.

The first step will be to cut down several trees in the ditch makes the southern border of the orchard. My son-in-law and neighbor will be doing that task. They both burn wood for heat so it's a plus for them. The second thing I have to do is get another 10 cubic yards of topsoil to build up raised rows and raised berms as the area remains quite wet during the spring and after a heavy rainfall.