I have comparable growing conditions. We are on the same latitude. I live about 4 miles from the MO border, so we are separated by about 250 miles.

Before you get to the point deciding what varieties (or even what types of trees) you want, you need to ask yourself some basic questions.

-How much time can you contribute to your orchard?

-Are you willing to spray?

-What is your time horizon on harvesting first fruit?

-What's the soil like? Does it water-log easily?

In MO, most fruit trees can be planted in the Fall or Spring, but Spring planting is by far the most common.

Thanks for the reply

-How much time can you contribute to your orchard?

I am self employed and work at home. SO I do have some latitude there time wise. Do I have time to daily coddle and baby a group of trees? Probably not. But I certainly would have time for semi-annual pruning, spraying, mulching etc.

-Are you willing to spray?

Sure. I am not an organic grower. My interest is in becoming more self sufficient. Looking down the road, I beleive the more self sufficient a family can make themselves the better off they are going be in the future. Growing at least a part of our own food is part of that plan for us.

-What is your time horizon on harvesting first fruit?

I would like some kind of fruit that ripens during most of the summer and fall. The paw paw and persimmons are going to be autumn fruits. If I had something that ripened late spring and early summer and then something to fill in the middle I would turn back flips. lol

I am mostly interested in "eat off the tree" fruits not cooking fruits. The last house we lived in had a couple apple trees that produced a ton of fruit. But they were so sour that the only way you could eat them was to bake them in a pie with a couple pounds of sugar. I want fruits we can pick off the tree, wash off and eat.

-What's the soil like? Does it water-log easily?

My yard has a decent gradient to it and drains fairly well. The yard is several decades old and has decent top soil. It is not a new construction that has had all the topsoil bulldozed off.

You live in an area that should be able to grow just about any type of peach, nectarine, apple, pear, plum, etc...

You might want to add some berries in the mix. Strawberries are very early (probably mid/late May/early June for you), blueberries (if you grow the right types, you can have berries all summer), raspberries (they spread like crazy, but are simple to grow and taste great), blackberries (these things grow like there is no tomorrow, keep a machete handy).

I would imagine your biggest issue could be weather? Early heatwaves causing trees to bloom early and then late freezes taking out all the blossoms?

Pests...you'll have to spray, but you'll have to figure out what your local area has for bug pressure. It can vary.

Disease...brown rot, etc...you might or might not run into a lot of disease. I don't spray any fungicides and have had very little damage, but maybe I've just been lucky.

Soil...trees will grow in anything given nutrients, water and good drainage.

I actually was planning to plant some black berries along my chain link fence. I do love blackberries. I am allergic to strawberries. Makes me really sick so they are out.

The berries and the vegetable garden I have done and am fairly confident about those. The trees are another story. I am totally inexperienced in that department. I do thank you all for your guidance.

Another thing I wanted to ask on this topic is what size tree to plant. Should I plant these as 12" seedlings or should I try to get larger 3-4 ft trees? Bigger?

Ray

Ray,

In terms of you time availability I would try to stick with easier care trees. You may get a vast diversity of opinions to your questions, but the following comments are based upon my locale/climate.

Fruit trees do best with a weed free strip under the canopy. I use mulch, primarily free wood chips from local tree crews. Trees in direct competition with weeds for nutrients and moisture don't perform as well. This is especially true for smaller trees (Think of how poorly an un-weeded garden performs.)

In terms of varieties, there are so many different tastes out there, I think you almost have to try some to determine what you like best. You could just go ahead and start planting trees without investigation, but you'll end up removing a lot of trees in the end (as I have done). More investigation will save you money and time in the long run.

For apples, I suggest you try tasting several varieties this fall. There is a place you can purchase boxes of mixed apple varieties that may give you an idea what you like. It's called Applesource. Apples are grown in southern IL, so the growing conditions should be fairly similar to yours. Below is a link. Apples are subject to about 3 major diseases in our area, Fireblight, scab, and rust. Depending on the level of susceptibility of the various cultivars you choose, you may or may not have to spray to control these diseases. It's almost certain you'll have to spray apples to control insects. In terms of a harvest horizon, the soonest you would expect to get apples would be about 4 years (+ or - 1 year). This can vary widely with cultivar. There's about a million different cultivars to choose from.

Pears are easier than apples, but take a little longer to bear. Generally pears aren't subject to any disease around here expect fireblight, which can kill them quickly. I would recommend a fireblight resistant cultivar, of which there are many. Pears can sometimes be grown without any spray whatever. Here, codling moth gets about 70% of the mature pears, but we have pretty intense insect pressure, so results could be better in your area.

Japanese hybrid plums are fairly easy to grow and bear quickly. European plums taste better in my opinion but take much longer to bear and generally aren't as productive.

Peaches are easy to grow and bear the second year. They do require spray.

Persimmons and Pawpaws don't require anything but mulching and pruning. Pawpaws have been hard for me to get started and I lost 50% of the ones I planted.

In all your picks stick with varieties that perform well in the Midwest. The biggest problem with peaches and plums is cracking and bacterial spot. The biggest problem with apples and pears is fireblight. Generally proven Midwest varieties will have some resistance to these problems.

Here is a link that might be useful: Applesource

"Another thing I wanted to ask on this topic is what size tree to plant. Should I plant these as 12" seedlings or should I try to get larger 3-4 ft trees? Bigger?"

You'll want to plant grafted trees not seedlings. Almost no one opts to plant seedlings unless they are interested in experimenting to find a new variety.

The most common tree sold by mail order nurseries is a 3/4" dia. tree. These trees typically perform well. I prefer smaller dia. trees for peaches.

Ok that brings up another question.

I have seen grafted trees mentioned. What is the difference between a grafted tree and seedling. It sounds like it is a sapling or branch grafted onto a mature root.

I am trying not to get lost in all the terminology. But>>>

Ray

rootstock (bottom)....scion (top)... put the two together and you have a grafted tree.

Most rootstock is specific depending on what you are growing...they usually have different traits (dwarfing, etc). Scion would be the specific fruit you want....McIntosh apple or Redhaven peach....

I'm kinda doing the same thing you're doing, on about the same size lot - only I'm in zone 7b so my choices are different.

The one thing I would suggest is to really pay attention to the harvest dates, otherwise you spend all year tending the crops and one month harvesting everything at the same time. A lot of these trees bloom around the same time (good for pollination) but there can be a difference of up to a month on the fruit being ready to pick. You want to harvest something every week otherwise you end up having to can and freeze stuff in order to eat what you grow. My elderly neighbors - who all grew up farming - are just baffled by my choices. They think in terms of growing acres of the same variety. I have just one or two of the same cultivar and up to a dozen of the same type of fruit.

If you get paw paws, order them from a nursery that ships them in pots rather than bare rooted. Paw paws are notoriously difficult to get started if they've been bare rooted, and if they survive, may take years to recover and get growing.

One Green World sells several varieties in pots, including the Peterson varieties, which are probably the best.

Alex

Thanks for the advise Alex

I have a good nursery close by that I plan to get my trees through. This is a family owned nursery that has been in business since the end of WWII and they have a good reputation. I can't see the business lasting that long if they did not know their stuff.

I beleive that once I explain to them what I am trying to do they probably already have a list of species that are good candidates for backyard orchard culture in this area.
I would almost bet that they already have a backyard orchard program mapped out for this area.

I am planning to go talk to them tomorrow afternoon and find out. I know it would probably cost me a little more to do everything through a nursery like that but I also think my success rate would also me much higher.

Ray