I would find plants that thrive in poor soil. Pomegranates came to mind first, but zone 7 is too far up there for fruit. Maybe crabapples? And... I found an interesting article that may intrigue you.

Oh, and... just use Round Up on the plot, or get someone with a tractor to till it well.

Best of luck!

- Tyler

Here is a link that might be useful: Bad Soil, Good Grapes

I wouldn't worry about the old roots or the top soil being scraped off.
The old roots have died are are rotted or are rotting.
Around here you don't find housing developments that weren't scraped. Trees grow deeper than top soil. It managed to grow a pine forest didn't it?
About all I would do is avoid non-vigorous dwarfing rootstock.

I'm judging that based on around here were clay is still good dirt. I don't know what you have.

I had a wooded hill cleared of trees and re-graded before I put in some fruit trees and there were spots scraped down several feet removing all topsoil, as well as spots with feet of topsoil pushed on them to even things out. Now its seven years later and you can't tell the difference which soil is which based on how the trees are growing. I do put several inches of organic mulch down every year on the trees. Also I had a hard time getting the between-row grass to grow in the spots with no topsoil but it eventually took off with enough re-seeding. One other problem I had was the places where the stumps were settled over the years so I had to periodically back-fill them with soil. If your stumps are more than 5 years old you shouldn't have that problem. So overall I agree with mykl, you should be OK. I used dwarf stocks on many trees and they are doing fine now, but having greater vigor is helpful in establishment.

Scott

Ah... now I understand why groundcover can't get established. The lot is mostly poison oak, brambles, wild grapes and invasive privet, plus tulip popular seedlings in the spring. Tilling won't help; it'd make it worse. Even the creeping charlie can't get a foothold -- it would make a fine orchard groundcover if I could only find the seeds for it. The clover seeds I bought for the field aren't likely to get established if the creeping charlie won't. Maybe I need one or two inches of topsoil put in so that a desirable groundcover can get established.

"What would you do?" If I had an entire vacant lot or field to start a new orchard, I would dance a jig and squeal like a little girl.

Since you're planting a large area, planting bare root trees next spring is your least expensive way to start. I would start in the larger area, because I've never seen anyone start planting fruit trees and vines and not end up wanting to plant more than when they started and wishing they had more room. Starting in the smaller backyard would only make this worse. Spend plenty of time reading to decide exactly what you want, how many, what varieties, and where.

An alternative to trying to draw a plan for the orchard is to use a spreadsheet. You can make the cells square so that each cell represent 5 feet for example. You can then type the names of the plants you want in each space, as well as cut-and-pasting URLs for the plant you want and the nurseries where you want to order them from. While you are deciding what you want and where, using the spreadsheet makes it easier to move things around than it is to redraw things on paper, and much easier than digging up plants and moving them about.

From now until spring, planting a cover crop of clover, vetch, winter rye, or buckwheat and then mowing and/or tilling it under a few weeks before you start planting will go a long way to increasing the fertility of the top soil. This is where the trees roots will start off and after that as the roots are heading south into the subsoil as others have said. Their are a few exceptions like blueberries than maintain a dense network of shallow roots rather than sending down deeper roots as they grow larger. If you are going to have blueberry bushes, they will need their own corner of the orchard anyway due to their ultra-low pH requirements, so the soil in that area could be amended extra well before planting, which is almost always a good idea with blueberries.

For not too much cost, you can get a few truck loads of manure, sawdust, or compost hauled to spread over the area before you plant. Sawdust will have time to decompose before spring if not applied too thickly. Applying manure with the sawdust will supply the nitrogen needed to speed up the breakdown of the sawdust.

After the orchard is planted, how you maintain the rows between plants can also contribute to building up the soil. Mulching around the plants and planting clover between rows is a common practice. The one downside I know of is that some research plots show that the cover crops can provide habitat for Japanese beetles. On the other hand, the cover crops in the row middles do provide habitat for beneficial insects and reduce the number of other pests. Either way, using mulched rows middles that decompose or growing cover crops that you mow/till, the soil will improve at the trees grow.

You have not said if you are planning to grow organically or not, but if you want an organic alternative to Roundup, the use of horticultural strength vinegar has shown to even be effective in killing bamboo infestations. Some people have unsuccessfully tried household vinegar and didn't understand that household vinegar is only 5% and you need 10% to 20% for killing weeds. I've not been able to find it at Home Depot, Lowes, or Walmart. I have used Garden Safe brand Weed and Grass Killer from Lowes. It works very well on poison ivy and is made of ammonia and soap. Hiring somebody to plow the area and then using a propane weed killer to get rid of everything that sprouts back from the roots and seeds is perhaps the most fun way to get rid of weeds that I know of. Always have a garden hose standing by and not trying it during a drought goes without saying.

I also agree with what others said that the soil must be reasonably okay or you would not have had much problem getting rig of whatever was growing there before. Once the orchard gets started, your aim will be to create the environment where nutrients and water get carried down to the trees roots.

"I would dance a jig and squeal like a little girl. "

LOL. I bought this house 3-4 months ago and I can't make up my mind if I'm thrilled that there was almost zero landscaping done in the 50 years it's been standing and I get to do it all... or overwhelmed that I have to do it all!

Actually, the backyard is bigger than the field. Slightly less plantable room once I avoid the septic lines and larger trees, but the vegetable and herb gardens are in the backyard, too.

I have about 14 different Visio diagrams of my landscaping schemes. Too scale. :) I'm that kind of gal. I'd upload one, but every site insists on resizing and resampling the image until it's completely illegible. I'll try uploading a PDF to Google Docs when I get home.

Planting time here is in the fall; spring will be too late because we don't really have a spring... it goes from frosty to 90F overnight. Unfortunately it's too hot to start any cover crops this summer, so they'll have to start in fall, too. I tried a trial patch to see if I could get anything going, but no luck.

Most of the fruit plants will come from a favorite nursery of mine that propagates from their own orchards.

I'd like to go organic, but for most fruits it just doesn't work here. With a couple of exceptions (plums and nectarines), most of what I am planting should take relatively less care. I guess you'd call my planned approach IPM.

I'll look into the vinegar. I sure don't recall seeing it at the local co-op. If I can get a clear window with no afternoon pop-up thunderstorms for a few days, I suspect it would have a chance to fully evaporate off instead running into the stream.

The stream (and associated downstream watershed) is an annoyance, but on the other hand the trees don't have to send their roots down too far to get a drink of water.

I am in the middle of installing a new orchard in an area that has never been planted.

It's desert here, so maybe the growth isn't as thick as in your area, but the principle is the same.

We are disturbing the surface as little as possible because the noxious weeds move in with a vengeance as soon as the native plants are disrupted.

First, the trees (high desert juniper) were cut down, cut into firewood, and removed. Just outside the orchard area, we made a couple of nice brush piles for the quail to hide in.

Next a self-loading log truck came in, grabbed the stumps with it's grapple and pulled them out of the ground. About 10 ft of root came out with the stumps.

Next should be water lines . We are using hoses and irrigation tubing on the surface. But buried lines go in at this point if you are going to have them.

Next should be a fence, but we put in trees first, because it was planting time. Trees protected with wire rings.

Then game fence around the whole thing. Next, chicken wire around the base of the fence to stop the bunnies.

The trees are growing happily and we are grubbing out rocks and rabbit brush from around them.

Goal is to keep as much native grass and wild flowers as possible while getting the surface level enough to drive a garden tractor with cart around.

If you have pine forest, it's possible that your soil will need to have some lime added. I suggest that you get a soil test done so you know what your working with.

Weed whacker will get rid of a lot of weeds, while adding some organic matter to your soil. If you keep the seed heads cut off the weeds before they can set seeds, it will go a long ways towards eliminating the weeds.

Your soil will be fine. All those roots from all those plants have been adding organic matter over the years.

Last night I spoke with the city ecologist, whom I met by chance. She said she felt Round-Up would be safer next to a stream than vinegar, provided I timed the application when there won't be any rain for at least 48 hours. That pretty much means waiting until October when the weather becomes more predictable.

Otherwise her only suggestion was to overseed every two weeks with buckwheat every two weeks and hope some of it catches and helps smother out some of the weeds.

The soil test is going out this Saturday when I can get to the post office.

If anyone is interested, here's the PDF link to my current scheme... I don't think you can zoom in close enough for all the details, but you should be able to see the fruit trees.

Here is a link that might be useful: PDF link (~400kb)