My Orchard

I've tried many things that usually only last a few years.  A notable exception is my orchard.   I have always been fascinated with fruits trees although I had minimal experience with them.  In 1993 I started reading up and fiddling with grafting in my backyard.  Then I bought some land near Prairie Farm, Wisconsin - about 60 miles from our home in White Bear Lake - from a relative.

The orchard looked like this when first planted in 1995.  Most of these tree didn't survive because I picked non-hardy varieties,  wasn't careful enough about protecting from rodents, and poor weed control.  It also suffered from deer and cattle damage.   Through trial and error, I now have replanted and have far too many fruit trees of many kinds.

There is quite the diversity in when trees bloom.    I discovered that the weeds - just getting going here - have an explosion of growth in the spring.  They will grow several feet tall by the end of June if they aren't mowed down.

Mice have girdled and kill many of my trees.  Here I am building a hardware cloth cage to protect the trees.  Rodents can kills even good-sized unprotected trees.

This is another springtime photo - the lay of the land in this unglaciated part Wisconsin is picturesque.

I pick apples from a specialized orchard ladder.

Practicality is no issue for me - I don't do this for money - which gives me a chance to try all sorts of apples.  The Chestnut Crab variety is a favorite of our family - particularly my wife who describes them as "like eating candy."  She eats several at a sitting.  It is small - just larger than an egg - but we think it has the best overall flavor of our apples.

This is a picking of mostly Nova pears in our minivan.  I've had more luck with apple trees but some pear varieties are doing well.  Better weed control - a chronic challenge - should help the pears.

I can grow varieties that seldom are found in stores.   Our culture slavishly prefers red apples, a puzzling choice to me.  I grow many kinds and colors but this is a red one with a twist.  This is a Winekist apple, perhaps the reddest-skinned of my apples, but it also has red flesh.  It makes a delightful tart red applesauce.

There are russeted apples, this one called Minnesota 1734, with a rough skin.  It is a dismal dry cooked apple but it is highly regarded as a cider apple.  When washed like this, it also is gorgeous.

I have a wealth of apples and now have the happy problem of what to do with them.   Some of my cousins have an old cider press.  We've been throwing together a wild collection of our apples and making cider.

We do many other things with our fruit.  I make many gallons of dried apples, peals included, in this fashion.  We also can goodly amounts of apple sauce and apple butter.   We also eat many kinds of fresh apples for roughly 4 months.

Developing an orchard isn't something that happens overnight.  And because these are standard rather than dwarf trees (because of their better hardiness and deer resistance) it takes them longer to produce.  I've made an unbelievable number of mistakes but even after all this time, it's still fun and keeps my interest.