I'm trying to make the most of my small yard and I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. I have several questions.

1.How far must a dwarf fruit tree be from the road/ alley?

I thought about trying to espalier apples along the road as a "fence, " but I worry about road salt in the winter. However, the edge of my veggie garden is only about 4 feet from the back alley road in places and it did very well last year. Do I need to worry about roots damaging the concrete, or on the other hand, the concrete smothering the roots?

2. How far should the trees be from an annual veggie garden that is new and probably needs annual rototilling for a few more years? In other words, how far will dwarf fruit tree roots penetrate heavy soil? (Yes, it's clay, but my Asian pear trees in the front are doing really well in the same clay, so I'm hoping apples and peaches will also do well. The whole yard is on a significant slope.)

3. Can diseases be passed between the fruit tree roots and either annual or perennial vegetable roots, if they were to reach each other? What if the trees were just a few feet from a perennial vegetable bed (artichoke, asparagus, rhubarb)? Then rototilling would not be an issue, but diseases might be -- or maybe there are no shared diseases/ pathogens.

I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences!

Thanks,

Mary

(I cross-posted this to the Dave's Garden fruit forum -- not allowed to link, I tried at first -- hope it's OK to cross-post. Hoping to learn from as many folks as possible!)