Planting Fruit Trees before it s too late

It's March Madness here on the farm. We're getting as much as we can get done before it's too late. Like, plant some replacement trees. I'd say we're more cowboys than plant ladies. So, we're gonna need some help. Thankfully, we have Allison coming with some trees and at least five different tips for us and you on how to plant trees. And thankfully, it's not too late. ♪ La la let, la la let me be free ♪ Happy day, 10 till eight. Two days after time change, this is our approach. Go to bed on the new time, get up on the old time. And hopefully, get up closer and closer to the new time every day, but give ourselves some grace. I always wake up automatically at 6.40 and I keep waking up at 6.40, except now it's 7.40. Yeah, yeah. When I was a teenager, like any teenager, I liked to sleep in. By the way, why do we say they slept like a baby, meaning they slept, what do you mean? You woke up every few hours screaming and crying? No, you slept like a teenager. My dream for when I grew up was to have a job where I could sleep in. And at 14, I became an entrepreneur. I always had wanted St. Bernard's, and so I said, let's turn this into a business. And I've been doing that ever since, turning my passion into a business. Next, it was mountain boarding, and then eventually ministry, where we turned young teenagers into missions. And then it was helping the young people of North Carolina through foster care. And then it was market farming. Just realizing there was a stint there. And mountain boarding, that was the glorious days in sleeping in. I used to work online. I had a mountain board shop online. Took two, three in the morning, would sleep till 10, ride, repeat. And then we had kids, and they wake up with the sun. So for years upon years, getting up with the sun. I got to get up with the sun. I got to get these rascals in. And then I followed my passion of teaching this wonderful thing that is this regenerative homesteading. And here we are. 10 years later, immersion learning through this log. I don't know why I brought up that whole history lesson to say this. Hope you enjoyed it. To say this, because of kids and long time farming, anything past seven feels like sleeping in. And really, just feel guilty. And if I'm gonna be honest, I felt guilty back when I was mountain boarding and sleeping in until 10. They say you should do with guilt one of two things. Let it go, or change. When time gets changed in an hour, that's a little bit difficult. Sudden change that fast. I'm not sure it's healthy. And it's not like we were staying up partying. So how do you let go? How do you let go of a guilt maybe you shouldn't have? Growing up, my dad was constantly, you're burning daylight, get up, let's go. Always had to be doing. In fact, when he waned at the end, it was almost a relief to see him actually sit and watch TV. I never saw the man sit and watch TV my entire life. Of course, that's how he went from that 600 square feet house, no running water, no electricity, to a successful businessman himself. Acquiring more land three miles from here, building a nice house on it for us to grow up in. You don't just get that by sleeping in. It's a balance. Honoring the body, making sure you get enough rest, but also making sure you get the work done. We have a nine o'clock here on the farm. We have a lady coming, a local plant lady, to help us replace the fruit trees we lost. Just texted, she's running a little bit late. We're all having a hard time getting on this new time change. And I'm okay with that, too, because I'm running a little bit late. We've got to plant trees. Can you think of a more important work besides acquiring animals? Rotating animals is not much more of an important work than planting trees. Henry, why are you wearing those gloves? I've got a hand for the trees. We've got a few minutes before the plant lady arrives. This is the two-ish acres, kind of in a nook, that we cleared during the 100 days of building a homestead. And now, though, we want to tidy it up and make it to where it's a little bit more easily used. Let's assess. We've got a brush pile there. Hopefully this is a March Madness project. Yes? We need to cut the spikes out. This road could be smoothed out. We need to get our water coming smoothly off the mountain, any water lines prepared. This ravine, well, the sheep have four-wheel drive. I want to use the sheep to get more in my nooks this year. We have a burn pile here. We have a burn barrier here. A burn barrier with that ravine. It's not on a hill, so that will be our master burn pile. We'll mow this for safety. This is a safe place for a burn pile. Get those rotten logs up. Are they rotten? Yeah. Put them on the burn pile, then. And you say you got some trees need to come down? Yeah. It's kind of thick around this Rich Mullins, isn't it? Yeah. You gonna clean some of those? I could. Okay. Phase one. A few more trees need to be cleared there. The small brush pile needs to be consolidated into the bigger one. All right. Along the way, Allison shares some useful tips at least five. Some I know, some I don't know. Some will be benefit to all of us. Hey, good morning. How are you today? You tell me, but I brought trees to plant. Yep. Let's put them in the truck. And let's go. And everybody's squeezing it. I don't want to squeeze in on that, because it's wet. It's wet. Everybody's working today. Is there another more important job than planting trees? No, because it takes forever for it all to come to fruition. No, this is about the most important thing to do. Especially if you're using the trees to complement your cows and sheep. Okay, tree number one. All right. You should introduce yourself to everybody. Who are you and what are you doing? My name's Allison Wade. I'm here from the Farm Connection. It's a little nursery that we started about seven years ago. And we specialize in edible, medicinal, and native plants. And so we brought some fruit trees today. You brought fruit trees and some nuts. Yeah, so these would be more food foresty type plants here. We'll look for a place for them. Do animals rotate through this area? Yes, but we wrap those trees with our electric net when we come through. Nice. In our daily paddock. So Ian wraps up these trees together, so we'll have to unwrap them. Now, every now and again, sure, somebody gets out and they go after the tree, but for the most part, we keep everybody in. And they do get out, but they tend to wander and enjoy other things before they enjoy the tree. But surely, if you put them in a paddock with the tree, they're gonna decimate it. Yeah. It's gone. It usually takes about six years before we don't have to wrap the tree anymore, yeah. Number one, you don't wanna just dig deep enough. You need to dig wide enough for your trees. And by the way, we got what you call bare root trees, which I think are better because you're planting them in your soil. So the tree adjusts to your soil quicker than if it came in a pot and it's in that soil and then it has to assimilate to the other soil. Yeah, bare root trees is where it's at. All right, is this deep enough? Teach us, Allison, teach us. We're more cowboys than plant ladies. You guys are doing great. Yeah, I'd probably pull the mulch away a little bit like you were talking about. Yeah. And we should dig this hole a little bit wider because we wanna loosen the soil around the tree. The root system on this one is fairly big. Yeah. So we probably wanna, this looks like good soil though. Henry, are you helping too? Dig down in there, buddy. You guys gotta go far. Look how far you gotta go. It's so cool it's on the camera. I'm gonna make it and then. Are we in trouble? This is already starting to bud. Well, nectarines are pretty early. So we'll just have to cover it, right? Well, so the way I kind of view the prunus, right? Like nectarines, peaches, apricots is you're kind of taking a risk. Yeah. And you wanna diversify so that like when you're cold, when your late cold snap comes through, you might get your nectarine that year but you're gonna miss your peaches. So we diversify plums, peaches, apricots, nectarines so that if the plums get hit this year, maybe the peaches don't. Okay. Which we are gonna have 29 degrees Thursday. I know. Well. So what we were thinking is just wrap it with some Agribond for the frost and then unwrap it during the day. I think that this year it's not gonna be a problem because you probably won't expect fruit off of this. Anyway, we wanna try to get it as deep as we can. Okay. And the roots are straight. It would be ideal if our hole is not as big as the root system that we would probably trim these instead of circle them or kind of split them in. Okay, okay. About the right depth, but we might wanna just go a little bit wider so that some of these. So that's not too bent and wound up. Well, if we can go a little bit wider, I think that would be good. This one's probably fine going. You know, anyway, the bigger the hole, I think, the better it's gonna be. Next time we'll put the dirt on this. Or we'll never have enough dirt to put back in the hole. Especially these bare root plantings. Yeah, I think that looks pretty good. None of these really look too. Okay. Do we need the Felco's? I think that, well, I'll try to use the. You'll use the, yeah. I'll try to use these. I would say it would be a good idea instead of curling that one to just cut it. That made a nice clean cut. I think that's okay. All right, we have our wire cutters up here of all things. I think, for the most part, these look good, though. Okay. All right, let's put it back. Boys, try not to get any of that wood chips in there. That's why we're gonna have to use that cardboard. That was a neat trick to, if your root, and I never knew about this, if you don't wanna dig a hole that big, and you just gotta get it done, and you've got too long of a root, snip it off. There we go. And don't get it, you know, the roots swirling around in the bottom of your hole, so to speak. This is our tree planting fertilizer. It's got worm castings, just like a general all-purpose fertilizer, some minerals with the azomite, and 18 different species of mycorrhizal fungi so that we can try to, you know, get these roots established really quickly with all the good soil biology. Nice. I think... You sell those? Yes, we do. You ship those, too? Yes, we sell and ship them. Good deal. Yes. So, I think here, sometimes what we do is we have a bucket, and we just kind of mix it into the soil that came out of the hole, but I think in this case, we can just do something like this. And so, as we're putting the soil back in, it'll just be kind of mixed in with it. I don't wanna get a whole lot of it right on the roots, but probably just sprinkling some of it down in the hole, too. All right. You're on. I'm trying to get the wood chips in there, so I will use cardboard the next time. Yeah. You guys are eager to go on tree number one. Are you guys gonna be this eager, tree number 10? I brought nine fruit trees. Okay, nine. And then, we just wanna make sure we don't get the... We don't want the wood chips on the bark. We don't want the wood chips on the tree. Well, we've got this. Yeah, do that, do that. Okay, great, yeah. Help her just die. I'm not strong enough, apparently. No, it's funky. It's like, there we go. There you go. It's not that, it's trick. It's like stretching as hard as I can, it's like... It's trick, not a shrink. Bye, guy. Now, you can put heavy mulch around it. We're gonna drive along, and I'm gonna test these. I don't know, we have 80-something-odd trees. To lose 10 of them, not bad, especially under sheer, utter... What is it? Sheer, utter, total neglect. The strong survive, and we just replace the dead ones early on, and eventually, we'll have all strong ones. And they'll be so low-maintenance. Is this dead? I think this one's dead. No, it's not dead. You can scrape the bark in the winter. If it's green, it's alive. Another thing, I've been testing my tree too hard. Just ever so gently, ever so little bit, just scrape the bark. What do you guys think? It's sickly if it's not dead. I peeled it right back here. You got any other trick besides peeling it? Oh, I probably wouldn't peel it that far. Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna check some of these up here. Just a gentle scratch right under, and there's green. Oh, okay, okay. So, I think it's alive. Okay, yeah, it's green up here. Yeah. So, what is it? Just more dead, barky stuff here at the back of it? Yeah, look. Maybe that's where I scraped it before, and it peeled back. It's alive, despite me trying to kill it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just getting older, and it's a different kind of tree, and it's got barky stuff. I think you keep that one. Well, good, because we don't have many of those. It's persimmon. Yeah. Besides if there's one down there, we can do it. So, I've noticed our trees do good. From this line, that tree line, over to that tree line. I mean, look. Good tree, good tree. And there's so many, and only one is dead. Tree number two. I know it's alive, because I can see a bud on the bottom of it. I see a green spot, but like. I think that hole looks good, and. Wait, just, wait, get in. She's gonna mix in her starter. Yeah, let's get, Rosie, you wanna jump one of those on there? Yeah, and then, let's pull this closer. There we go. Wait, you already burn out after one tree? Yep. Oh, these are our fruit trees. Anytime during the growing season, there's gonna be all the fruit you could ever want to eat. I would eat, I would eat, I would eat all the fruit. That smile, that was classic. I would eat, I would eat all the fruit. You would love to eat all the fruit. You gotta play that back, Austin. All the fruit you could ever want to eat. For starter kit, did you catch that? She sells a starter kit, but it's a more, I don't know if I filmed it or not. It's not a real, I guess, strong. It's more neutral. I forget the word she used for it. But you don't wanna use heavy fertilizer on your fruit trees, and you don't wanna use a whole lot of amendments anyway, and just mix in a little bit. It's got vermicomposting in it, which is worm poop. So, it's gonna, I guess, leach into it a little more slowly and naturally. So, we sprinkled some of that in, and that felt real good. That felt right. It's alive above the grass, so whatever variety it was, it still is. Is it worth replacing? I think it would be a good idea to replace it, especially since I'm here with some bigger live trees. We could do a nut, couldn't we? We could do the nut. Yeah, what kind of nuts did you bring? I brought some hazelnuts and some chestnuts. So, the thing to remember about, do you already have hazelnuts or chestnuts? We have neither. So, they are wind-pollinated, and so you really kinda wanna have them close together. So, when we plant them, I think it'd be a good idea to put three of them kinda close together. That feels good. Three down, six to go. We're gonna do a little divide and conquer. Ladies versus men. What happened, Josiah? We got a lot like these. These are cherries, but I didn't ask for any cherries, did I? Okay, that one's for sure sad. Almost 11, it feels like almost 10. It's a trip. I would say this one needed to be replaced, wouldn't you? Animals, no delayed gratification. All right, there we go. Hey, you want a natural dopamine hit? Plant a tree, that's how it comes. Earned, earned, not from scrolling. Earned with your bare hands. No, it didn't right there. I'm sure we learned more as we went along there, but the fifth thing I wanna point out is you wanna plant into the native soil. I asked her what is the most important thing she could communicate to somebody planting their first tree, and she said, don't care for it too much, or don't take too much care for it. You don't have to baby these trees, and we've adopted that method here. We've planted our trees, we've put some mulch around them, we've put some comfrey around them, but that's it. Every year, early on, we're in the early on stages, we're just replacing the ones that don't make it. And that way, when they finally all do make it, those are gonna be the ones that want to grow and the ones that want to grow here, and it's gonna be no fuss and a wonderful gift for our grandchildren. All right, what are we thinking here? We're gonna plant some chestnuts here. All right, this is just a wooded edge. We'll never graze it. Gideon, let him have the hatchet, bro. All right, go dig, Josiah, right there is fine. Screech! She asked me if we have pigs. Of course we have pigs, pigs for everybody. We're moving this to where we're gonna run the pig land, and we're gonna put this on the edge of the pig land, so if we forsake harvesting these, the pigs will get them. We didn't waste our time starting these holes. We're gonna plant aronia berries. Which are blueberries. They're the same size and shape and color as blueberries. They taste pretty similar, too. They're really nice and sweet, but they're really fibrous, so adults have a hard time eating them, but children love them. They're really great for smoothies and for baking with, and they're the highest antioxidant value native North American fruit. Wow. They're super healthy, too. All right, we're gonna mulch for some rocks, eliminate some of the competition, and we'll be able to identify where they are. There we go, and now it looks like we can identify it. String trim around it, Josie. Yes. Pig time. I love this concept. For if we forsake harvesting them ourselves, the pigs will end up getting them. We'll be running the pigs up through here. Trees can be along the edge. Okay, you ready? And you said they could be prying pretty close. Martini tree. Yeah. The last one, is that what that means? In filmmaking, they call it the martini shot. Oh, all right, okay. So we'll call it the martini tree. I've learned something. All right, you taking your pot? Yeah, well, unless you want it. No, it's your pot. Okay. That's probably a $5 pot. They're like $13 actually. Whoa, I forgot, we're in the 20s now. We're no longer in the 90s. Thank you, Allison, and for bringing Rosa. Rosalie. Rosalie, okay. Tell us again, where can people, you ship these bare root plants? Yeah, we ship the bare root plants to all lower 48 states. Wow, and the starter kit. And the tree planting kits, yep. Yeah, good add-on for those. We also ship plants with soil to the East Coast. So there's all kinds of stuff on our website. We also have cover crop seeds. What's your cash cow? What's the most popular thing that everybody should be getting? Yeah, yeah, bare root trees right now. They'll find everything else on my website. Everybody needs to get the bare root tree. What tree are they not planting that they should be planting? There's a lot of apple trees right now. I think apple trees are a really great first fruit tree for a homestead. They can be- What kind of apple tree? Because everybody wants to be cool and plant the honeycrisp or whatever. I think the most important thing to remember about the apple trees is that you just need good cross-pollination. So get some varieties that you're interested in eating. I recommend throwing in some good self-fertile varieties like Granny Smith is a great one. And then that's good for homesteads too because that's the one that you use for making applesauce and pies and things. And it's self-fertile, so it provides a lot of pollination power to your entire orchard. So just a good mix, three or four trees, you can almost never go wrong with cross-pollination in that case. What's the cool tree that people are planting that maybe shouldn't? I think- Because it's so difficult. Well, I mean, I personally love all of those extra things that I brought you, the native fruits and nuts and the forest farming things. So that's a lot of what we carry and we like to promote out in the world too is those service berries and the aronia berries, elderberries, those things are really easy. They're native, so you don't have to fuss with their whole and a bunch of crazy planting techniques, no pruning techniques, you just throw them in there and then they start making fruit. Okay, cool, thank you. All right. Tell the website again, I'll also link it. It's the Farm Connection, you can find us at tfcnursery.com. Yeah, and we're gonna put a special link in the show notes. Are we gonna do a coupon code too? Yeah, we can. Yeah. Okay. What's your code you like to use? You could do roads 10, something like that. Okay, great, roads 10, we'll do it. Down in the description. Oh! Oh, no. This afternoon. You gotta make soil blocks. No. Yeah, three bags. I don't know about that. Gotta do that. Since you're making that video tomorrow, you gotta do this right now. Right now? Time to talk. Hey, we're not, we're fasting tonight. We're fasting. It just keeps getting worse. We decided that we need to make soil blocks. Instead of eating. Yeah, in the evening, but it's cool. Yeah, sure. It's really funny. It's hilarious. Thanks, Allison, for helping us get those trees in the ground. Guys, those trees are the ultimate passive income. Work and your sleep kind of deal. Those trees are gonna be growing and producing R's for us while we sleep. Now, Allison was so kind to come out of her day. Let's bomb her. Let's explode her website. I left a link down in the description. Go blow it up and tell her I sent ya. Hardworking family right there. You'll get a lot. You can get that starter kit there. You can get trees, all kinds of good stuff there. Check it out. ♪ La la let, la la let me be free ♪