Carla

Don't give up. Fight them hard. Trap them and get yourself a good watch dog.

Tony

My dog keeps even birds out of the yard.
I had to train him on the birds, but it wasn't that hard.
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That's why I have two outside cats. They really put a dent in the rodent population.

Nice looking dog, Drew. I have a red merle aussie.

Build a varmint proof shelter. Quarter inch hardware cloth should keep out everything. Had one once and loved it. Greenhouse is more dependable production given freezes but hardware cloth fends of critters and hail.

You have the trees. Plant them close together DWN style and cover the whole lot. Even heavy duty hail netting would help.

Good idea fruitnut. I made cages wirh PVC and bird netting.
Kinda filmsy but cheap and does the job, you can also break them down to store.
The robins sneak past my dog, They hide on the ground, sneaky birds!
Rob, Awesome! I love the breed. My 2nd one. I didn't think I could get a better one than Max, but Jesse is the smartest dog I ever had. The best dog too! He was a fuzzy bear as a puppy! Max was awesome too, I miss him. He lived to 12 1/2 years old. Jesse is a chick magnet!
Handsome beautiful dog.

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I used to use 1" chicken wire, which seemed to work for the type of rats prevalent in S. CA along with the even more pesky ground squirrels. Get the black plastic coated type and sew the pieces together with similar wire. At least you don't get snow so you don't have to worry about big flakes building up and collapsing your shelter. If it's tight enough to keep a canary in it should be tight enough to keep the critters out.

Or you can build boxes for individual trees and move them around as the fruit ripens- if they are only taking nearly ripe fruit.

I too have extensive vermin. One year I planted 300 SQ FT of corn. I harvested 12 pounds of corn and 128 pounds of raccoon along with 61 pounds of opossum. once I learned how to cook them up they were Delicious. Hear is what I found. It pays to plant what animal don't like. spinach, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, mustard greens, turnips beets peppers, basil, sorgrum, bok choy, leeks onions, garlic, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, citrus trees.

It is forbidden to sell on this forum. However you can tell people they can find your tree on crag's list. Or you can do what I did and offered my trees for free on the garden web a year ago. I still have every tree.

Steve

Carla:

I know you've had issues besides vermin but Sacramento has one of the best climates for growing fruit of any location in the world. A 300 day growing season, mild winters, warm but not too hot summers, and near perfect rainfall distribution. I spent thousands trying to duplicate that climate in west Texas. Everyone has vermin ready to take their crop. Here it's coon and birds. They'll take 100% of most fruits unless deterred. A shelter is the best bet. If the trees are in pots you're setup to go that route. I've got 250 trees in 1700 sqft greenhouse. A 600 sqft shelter would protect a lot of trees and produce more fruit than you could eat. One shelter with a dense planting is much more efficient than protecting individual trees.

Drew, here is ours when he was a pup. We thought "Bear" was a fitting name. (sorry for hijacking the thread!)

Since I don't get apple peaches pears ,plums, or paw-paws I thought of cutting my trees down and then I thought I don't have grass as a result of my fruit trees I kept them for that and their beautiful flowers. The time I save from cutting grass, spraying trees pruning trees and fighting vermin I have replaced with 3 Dance groups, local church activities, and going out with fiends. The money I save doing so allows me enough $$$$$$$$$$$$ to buy organic produce and go out to eat 2X a week with my wife.

If you have the space it is easier to protect individual trees from ground vermin. Place a barricade collar around each tree below any reachable/jump-able limbs with electrification and keep limb branch 6 feet up and you have knock out everything that ails you. Cat perches in the tree can aid against bird. There can't be anything the animals can jup over and down to your trees

Steve

Thank you all for the suggestions, I do have kitties and Whippets and Italian Greyhounds who do their best to chase the vermin, but there are too many paths for them to get away. And I can't put netting over my entire yard, plus it wouldn't keep away those that can tunnel underground such as the mice. I am going to keep maybe 10 trees, the rarest and yummiest fruit, but I need my yard back.
Here is a photo of why I am liquidating:

Yep I agree with liquidation. Have you considered replacing that with a hen house for fresh eggs LOL

I definitely had this romantic notion that I was going to show my local supermarket that I wasn't going to pay $1 for ONE orange and that was that. If I could do my own house painting, I certainly could do my own fruit growing!

Well, if I count the trees I purchased, mulch, fertilizer, netting (which never worked), I could have purchased more fruit that I could have eaten in 5 years. So far I'm losing the war against deer, birds, tree rats, et al, who also need to eat. I didn't realized I had volunteered to be their food pantry.

I will keep what I have and fight the good fight, but it's a losing one so those of you who are planning fruit orchards with rose colored eyes, beware: Paying $1 per orange is worth not being aggravated, frustrated and disappointed over hungry critters that don't give a darned about your self-sufficiency agenda.

Mice don't eat that much fruit, but when you give up you give up.

REAL GARDENERS NEVER GIVE UP!

And if you are keeping 10 trees you haven't given up.

I guess I have given up on my orig. objective to be self-sufficient. If one wants to be proud of prevailing over critters regardless of expense, keep on keeping on but if the goal was to make fruit more affordable, forgedddaboutit!

-----------------------------"REAL GARDENERS NEVER GIVE UP!"----------------

But real smart gardener decide what to grow and what to buy.

Since the squirrels get 10-12 bushels of my 13 bushel orchard I am top grafting my fruit trees to all produce at one time. Plums and peaches cook down to make thick tasty no additive perseveres. Apple and pears can be shaved and dried to make fruit chips, There is not a bird on the planet that won't chose a mulberry over any domestic fruit. Squirrels chose mulberry first. Plant a mulberry tree and get you own cherries, black berries, raspberries, strawberries, and etc berries.

Fresh figs cost $7 per pound. Hardy chicago figs prove very productive in zone 6. Sour cherries make excellent pies, breads and cobblers and can't be bought in the store. rainier cherries go for $4.99 a pound. Kumquats go for $4 a pound Chose your plant wisely and enjoy your free time and home grown exotic fruits.

Hardy chicago fig with 72 figs by April 15 in zone 6. Frost still posible

Fruit growing isn't for everyone. For most of us it is a hobby and not a very expensive one. For the guy/gal who is eating out twice a week on the cash saved you must have had a lot of trees. I don't spend that in a year and my return is greater than my input.
Having said that...I do understand where you are coming from and that is why I continually focus on cost effectiveness with everything. You simply CANNOT go out and just buy everything you need labeled for fruit trees and high end soil modifiers etc and expect to reap a return. In almost all cases you simply will not.
DO NOT place any value on your time or you will definitely be sorely disappointed. Professional/commercial orchards barely make out and they work with scale and expertise.

There really should be a thread on growing fruit at home cost-effectively. You cannot spray pricey synthetics or apply fruit-tone as a fertilizer etc and expect even a break-even return. You just can't. One must be extremely judicious in expenditures and lesser spraying is not the answer. The type of spray is...same goes for fertilizers etc.

IMO...if you have to build any type of totally restricting fencing etc....just forget it. You will unlikely be able to justify that cost over it's lifetime.

Be totally and joyfully willing to count your labor as zero...if not...forget it. You can buy fruit WAY, WAY cheaper than you could ever hope to produce it yourself.

Sad reality, but that's just the way it is.

A good electric fence designed to keep out squirrels, coons and deer can in itself reduce critter problems to what can easily be trapped or poisoned out. If I was on flat land with an well organized orchard in one quarter acre section of it that would be my method of choice. Whoops, forgot about birds!

Here birds are pesky but only fully destructive to blueberries.

A while back there was a thread Clark posted about the most expensive fruit. When I read that, I almost posted back, the most expensive fruit is the fruit you grow yourself :-)

Seriously though I think BossyVossy post was spot on. For my backyard orchard, I spent a ton on site preparation (installing field tile and eventually building a raised planting) various sprayers and spray equipment, trees, initial fertilizer, soil tests, leaf analysis, pesticides, digital scale, nets, traps, etc. etc.

Then you need something to store your harvest, which is either some form of refrigeration, or canning, both of which require expensive equipment. As Appleseed mentioned, don't even think about counting your labor. Of course there are easy fruits like strawberries or tomatoes, but I'm primarily speaking of tree fruit here.

Raising fruit commercially does offer some cost advantages, but not as much as one might think. For one thing as a homeowner, you don't have to count the cost of the land in the equation. A homeowner already has the land anyway. All they have to do is give up some of the sod they've been mowing and plant some fruit trees.

Not so with commercial. Land is expensive and there is a significant opportunity cost to owning it. Then there is the cost of selling your commercial crop that a homeowner doesn't have.

There is packaging/boxing, all kinds of insurance, farmer's market fees, taxes of all kinds, website, harvest equipment, parking area, signage, scale for weighing fruit, pop up shade, portable table, business cards, all the equipment for the orchard, and the costs for maintaining that equipment, some sort of bathroom facilities, storage facilities for storing equipment, etc. etc. You can't do all the labor yourself, so you have to start paying for labor, which is expensive.

After all the costs, you can't count on a crop every year, so some years are a loss before you ever get out of the gate. Basically, as Bossy says, paying one dollar for a large, high quality orange is a bargain.

The fruits I get off my tree are cheaper than the fruits I buy. My fertilizer is free. The time I spend is recreation. The gas plus car wear and tear are expensive and the time it takes to shop is agonizing. If I had command over my airspace I would have no problem keeping vermin out. My yard is 50 feet by 100 feet with a house foot print of 20 by 52. There is no where a squirrel or raccoon can't jump down to. It would be very easy with out killing them. I get a half day of sun at 10 feet above ground. Ground level get 1-3 hours sun so all my vegetable are grown on my roof 43 feet above the street. All my veggies are cheaper than store bought. The question is do I want to grow both cheep and expensive vegetables or just expensive vegetables and go dancing with friends in my the spare time. The grocery store "MUST" be past on my way home if I take the shortest route. With organic greens going for 3-6 $$$$$$$$$$ per pound in the winter I need to grow my own. My, (in zone 6b) greenhouse hit 102F yesterday. I am ready. Here's where I get cost effective vegetables Click link below to open my Picasso web album. Click on any thumbnail and use your mouse wheel to enlarge. Most are enlargeable to 8 megapixel.

Here is a link that might be useful: https://picasaweb.google.com/111099372377958308731/HousePlants?authkey=Gv1sRgCI763rvAj8eLAg

This post was edited by poncirusguy on Tue, Jan 20, 15 at 10:47

It's not just about the cost of a fruit. To a home fruit grower fruit shouldn't be a commodity. Quality is more important.

I've never had a supermarket/farmers market peach or orange as good as one from the tree, not even close.

Plus it's fun growing your own fruit (at least in CA, where there is minimal maintenance/frustrations).

I'm in suburbia and the animals here are not used to fruit. So far my dog has kept out the squirrels and most of the birds. I lose about 5 fruits out of thousands a year. Now berries I'm talking about. I have grown hundreds of tomatoes and one was taken. I have to move, but you know, I'm trying to stay now as this place is perfect.
Let's go back to dogs, Rob, what a beautiful dog! Congrats!

Before you think having a couple of hens is cheap wait til you build a secure coop your neighbors won't complain about.....

And now we have a hungry bobcat and no more free ranging. I had just decided I was tapped out on chicken coop funding til I found wire for 75% off yesterday.....

But if you got the skill you can charge other people to grow their fruit and grow your own with the materials you are needing to do your business.

If the crops fail, well better luck next year for them- if most years go well enough there will be other customers to replace any who aren't satisfied.

I'm surprised that I've heard of no one on this forum following my business model- seems like the perfect job for fruit fanatics.

Sautesmom, don't be discouraged by your decision. You are doing what you want to dol Your potted orchard looks fairly un-tended and basically you've let it go. Either you select the potted trees you want or you don't. The pots look too small for the trees and it also looks as if there is not enough soil in the pots to keep the trees healthy. Maybe I'm all wrong, but your orchard looks, done. Mrs. G

There doesn't appear to be enough soil in those pots, and the pots themselves look very small.

Also, soft skinned fruit is the most vulnerable to insect and vermin. You would have been better growing pears, pomegranates,persimmons or citrus, unless you don't like them.

Unless you don't mind spending large amounts of money, potted fruit culture is just not worth it. It costs too much time and money to be cost effective, to keep potted trees happy for my taste. You also have to be very selective of the varieties that you grow if you're trying to be cost effective. Sprays, fertilizers, netting, will make grocery store fruit very cheap.

And lastly, gardening isn't as glamorous as it's made to seem. It's not for many people. No shame in realizing that it's not your thing.

If you still want to try, get a lemon, asian persimmon, or pomegranate, and put them in the front away from all the trees in the back. Oh, and buy your peaches, plums, and berries at the grocery store.

I lived in downtown Sacramento for several years and I can imagine the vermin problem. I was standing outside my apartment one evening when a rat ran down the fence, jumped into the tree next door and climbed down into the yard (luckily my wife wasn't there to see it). Squirrels everywhere.

That you even tried shows a lot of desire. The area is not conducive to gardening - lots of large, old, three-story houses converted into apartments, small lots, lots of shade trees so your small back yard gets little sun.

Better to grow a smaller number of trees well than a lot of trees badly.

gary

Harvestman, I'm not surprised that there are few others who are going pro like you. It sounds like a lot of work, both physically, and to get clients. Personally, I would hate to be outside pruning all winter long. Anything below 40 and I want to spend as few minutes as possible outside. I can make myself dig holes, shovel mulch, and prune in my yard, often for much of the weekend during the warmer seasons. But I don't think I'd be that motivated if it was someone else's yard.

It's a lot easier to earn a living in an office (at least for someone who has a strong interest in working with computers) and garden on the side. I still sometimes look at what you do and think "wow, that has to be fun", then I follow that up with "and pretty tough at times."

One thing I would like to do is have more space to plant all the different things I'd like to grow. I suppose you have that, but you can't really experiment too much, as there has to be strong pressure to deliver and an experiment may not. This year, I'm expanding my yard by giving (and sometimes planting) jujube benchgrafts in several friends and families yards. I ordered 50 and will plant as many as I can in my yard (probably 8-10), with the rest going to others. I'll probably keep 10-20 in pots for a few months until I find homes for them. This should get me experience (sometimes from other yards) with over 20 varieties. But, I wouldn't do it if jujube's needed constant maintenance. From what I've read and seen so far, they can stand on their own just fine.

sautesmom...one thing I'm trying out is to put individual cages around clusters of fruit so I can at least get something from the tree. I've only made a few crude ones so far, but the apples enclosed were untouched by the squirrels.

Since the squirrels will grab the cage/basket and swing from it and pull the fruit stub/branch off if necessary , the key is to stabilize the cage so that it can't be pulled down. For that I've used two metal posts (1/2" emt pipe...very cheap at Home Depot) stuck in the ground with one on either side of the midair cage. Then I run guide wires to the cage from the poles in a way that it can't be swung or moved in any direction (up, down, sideways). To make sure it was secure, I simulated an angry squirrel, pulling on it from all angles and snarling.

I know this seems like a POA to do, but the setups can be reused over and over and eventually I'll find the easiest material to use so it will be quick to set up. Right now I'm making the cages from aviary wire(1/4" holes so squirrels can't reach in) and using mechanics wire.

Another idea is to electrify these cages but first I'm working on electrifying individual trees.

So don't give up completely, there is always a way if you're an optimist.

John

Fruit growing can be discouraging at times. Olpea is certainly right about the expense. I like your approach of scaling back to 10 to defend a smaller number of trees is easier. I use a variety of methods and feel through the years I've fought some formable adversaries. The deer, raccoons, rabbits, rats etc. I've fenced out the deer, used an electric fence to beat the raccoons, planted target mulberries to beat the birds, poisoned the rats, painted tree wound sealer on the base of the trees to beat the rabbits. People snuck in a few years for blackberries. I'm not allergic to poison ivy apparently they are. Poison ivy and blackberries are companion plants and I always mowed it down, salted it etc but one year I got sick and didn't. No one snuck back since for blackberries. Having fought many many times I understand but giving up is not something I recommend. Make your orchard defendable even if you have to run electric fence a foot apart around the whole thing. The English hunted their problems with falcons. My overall strategy is to plant so much there is plenty for everything and everyone. I do not kill my snakes, praying mantas, or spiders unless they cause problems because they are necessary predators. I have many feral cats and coyotes. There is always a way don't give up on your dreams.

Btw Drew I love your dog

I've stapled screen pouches around some of my fruit and it keeps the squirrels, rats, birds and everything out. Critters get frustrated and leave. Some of my trees are fine with just birdblock.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pom security

This post was edited by mrclint on Wed, Jan 21, 15 at 10:36

mrclint, screen pouches was something I tried years ago but was discouraged when I'd find a pouch on the ground, intact peach inside but also with the small branch still attached...the squirrel ripped it off the tree, thus doing more damage than just taking the fruit.

I'm glad you mentioned using screen material, I'll look at it again and see if I can figure out how to secure each one to some metal posts. The screen material is much easier to work with than aviary wire/mesh.

My very good friend Victor made a short film showing me how to catch squirrels and said I could set a link from GW foeums

Here is a link that might be useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ0WyxwpA1g