It was a relatively new supplament when we started the garden here. I used the Myke brand for planting most things here. I haven’t seen it lately. I don’t use a supplement now as I assume there must be a good population of the fungi in the soil here by now. It is a living thing so there should be a ’Best before’ date on the container, so check that to make sure it is viable, and also there is usually a different formulation for trees, vs. perennials etc. So get the right stuff.

you had horses .. just use a top dressing of well rotted manure.. well away from the trunk .... and let your soil build itself ...

all marketing mumbo jumbo in my book.. i might go as far as calling it malarkey ... lol ..

ken

GG: Really good info and things to thing about -- appreciate the detailed response.

Woody: A local nursery sells Myke, but it is pricey. Best buy date makes sense, didn't even think of that.

Ken: We went through all the manure already :0) The area I put the trees is in the pasture, so the area was definitely passively manured over time, plus I'm on old farmland -- I've got terrific soil here.

Some of my other fruit trees are struggling to the point I'm debating just taking them out, so I guess I"m just looking to do better this time around, a chance to start fresh. I did mulch the trees with the stump grindings from the willow, but not too heavily. I didn't make really wide planting holes, maybe about 18" or so across, but I did dig deep, and of course I'll mulch fresh in the fall with shredded leaves.

i have a spot behind the barn.. where the horse were fenced ...... and 22 years later.. the grass is still going bonzo ...

i simply dont understand why former farm ... horse pasture ... would be lacking anything ... except for maybe hard packed.. but with our ground freeze and thaw cycles... even that should work itself out with late winter heave ....

that and the belief... the trees NEVER need anything once established... leads me to the mumbo equation ...

anything the interferes with the plant budget is questionable to me.. lol ...

ken

ps: 3 to 5 years for a tree to grow the root mass to get established .. i cant quite tell how old the older ones are in your scenario ... so im not sure how long your tolerance will go.. but the bottom line is always.. as you well know.. if they are pissing you off.. just be done with it ...

pps:btw... have you ever looked into how much you are going to have to spray the fruit trees to get a good end result.. starting with dormant oil in late winter.. thru 2 or 3 or 4 other sprays during the growing season ... that was the wall i hit...and of course.. it was based on spending all that money on said spray products ... cutting into my hosta budget ... not to mention not really wanting to be spraying with the kids around when they were young and actually out in the garden ...and then figuring if i really wanted or needed a bushel we have so many orchards around.. i could just go buy what i needed for canning.. or jelly or whatnot.. [but buying all those jars also cut into the hosta budget.. so that never happened.. lol] ....and not have 5 tons left over .. lol... and if you want to attract deer to your garden.. just let a thousand apples fall to the ground in fall... they will come .. and if you dont pick them up.. you will have drunken bees and wasps on them after the first forst ..... and btw.. how do you spray a 20 foot tree .. and how ugly are properly pruned PRODUCTION trees.. as you can see.. my life with fruit trees ended ... after 5 or 10 years... and good riddance ... if you havent figured it out.. im trying to get you to avoid wasting at least 5 of the 10 years i messed with them ... lol .. if you are still reading this rant ...i feel a little better.. and you have something to think about .... and for some reason.. i want to go buy hosta ....

Re the orchard ... Have you considered growing Heritage trees? When we were kids, we lived with my maternal grandparents. Grandpa was 80 when I was born and lived into his mid-90s. He had stopped actively farming years earlier but srill maintained a large veggie garden and there was also an orchard, to provide veggies and fruit for our extended family. We all helped in the garden and orchard. The trees in the orchard had never ben sprayed and not too much pruning done either! They were not modern dwarf varieties but substantial trees in many cases! Picking involved climbing trees, using ladders, and/or a hook on a long handle to shake the fruit loose! One of the few variety names i remember is Alexander - a HUGE tasty apple that could take all day for a small kid to eat! A friend who lived nearby 60 years ago had the same variety at their place. One of her sisters owns the place now and she says that tree is still producing fruit! So, consider why you are growing fruit trees and plant (and maintain them) accordingly...!

Yes, all good comments -- fruit growing isn't easy. Well, I shouldn't say that. I do well with melons and small fruits (e.g. blueberries, raspberries, etc), it's the fruit trees that are the problem. Funny heritage trees and apple trees were mentioned -- there are two nice-looking old scrub apples near the edge of the property that I do nothing to because I couldn't care less about the fruit, it tastes terrible -- hence my description as scrubs. They flower and fruit every year without fail. DH wasn't too happy the first year when he noticed the fruit drop (yep, maybe not thousands but darn near close!) -- I told him to just leave them, the deer will get them, and anything that keeps them away from my ornamentals is something that's probably a good idea. Sure enough, by the time a few weeks went by, not an apple left on the ground LOL! So we don't bother cleaning up, just leave them there for the wildlife.

--> How would I even go about locating heritage trees? Everything around here in the nurseries are the dwarf or semi-dwarf hybrids.

Growing fruit trees is new territory for me at this house, so there's definitely a learning curve. The first peach tree I planted is 5 years old, and it's a mess -- it is covered in peach leaf curl every year without fail, and it has gummosis really bad this year. The only reason I haven't ripped it out yet is in years past it leafed out again nicely after the leaf drop from the peach leaf curl, it offered a nice shady respite in the vegetable garden. This year it's only re-leafing out at the top of the tree, so I'm leaning towards taking it out if it won't end up looking decent -- if I don't get any fruit, it better at least be nice to look at... The new trees are planted a ways away, so the disease won't (well, shouldn't...) travel that far, and with smaller new trees I can at least try to keep it at bay.

You know, all I want is ripe, sweet, mouth-watering stone fruit -- don't need a butt-load of it, it's just DH and I. If a tree yields three bushels, and the birds get two and I get one, I'll be happy; if I get two I'll be thrilled and learn how to preserve it. I can't tell you the last time I had good-tasting stone fruit -- it's all cr*p in the stores, and even the local growers at the farmer's market aren't selling really good fruit. Now, apples and pears are a different story -- great-tasting apples and pears are pretty easy to come by in season around here and are pretty inexpensive, so I don't want to bother with trying to grow those.

Pm2 - yes, my gardening started when I was 3-4 years old and helpng Grandpa plant seeds, cut up potates for planting, weeding and watering in the garden, harvesting veggies and fruit, etc, etc. There was an earth-floored cellar under the house for storing produce over the winter. There were also chickens, draft horses, Standardbred race horses, and the last of Grandpa’s herd of Jersey dairy cows... My childhood was guaranteed to make a kid a gardener - or to hate gardening! Fortunately both my sister and I love gardening! It also taught us that things can often be grown in easier ways than you might think.... A lot of the gardening I do here is inspired by the landscape of my youth

mxk3 - I understand completely. We buy peaches, we try to ripen them on the counter, and they just are so difficult to do. And I used to love ripe peaches. I've about given up on them. I've bought frozen peaches for smoothies but they are awful, they must pick them before they are ripe, they have no flavor, so I stopped buying them.

Prairiemoon, in re peaches: I read a tip a few years ago and it has worked for me. I but two or three peaches that are not yet ripe, put them in a brown paper lunch bag, and in a day or two (keep checking) they are perfect. Still, not like the old days when my dad and I would have to lean over the sink to eat them because they were so juicy. Sigh.

pm2 - I am from NB on the east coast of Canada and that is where my maternal grandparents' place was. My paternal grandparents died long before - in fact, my father and his two brothers were raised in an orphanage! Where Grandpa and Grandma lived was rural when my mother was growing up but there is nobody farming there now and much of it, including my grandparents' place, is 'rural residential' and almost unrecognizable! The property was sold out of the family many years ago.

I've always had a liking for the big equine guys but opted for something of a more practical size when I bought a horse for myself for my 30th birthday... Nutmeg died in 1998 and i no longer do horsey things :-)

P.S. mxk3 - there are lots of places that sell heritage fruit trees - just Google to find them.

I mixed some nearby oak-litter soil into the hole my sourwood got planted -- heard they depend on the mycorrhizal fungi. Anyway, the sourwood has done OK, tho can't get out of shrub stage.

I second everything ken said in his "PPS" (except the bit about the hostas). I had a few fruit trees and realized I would never be able to give them the care they needed with our pest pressure here. Instead, I support the local farmers who do put in all the work. I also do NOT like to have huge amounts of anything that spoils quickly. We don't really eat much canned food and I only have so much freezer space. I prefer fresh fruits and veggies and don't need bushel upon bushel of fruit forcing me to put it to use or lose it to rot.

I have everbearing strawberries just for that reason! I don't want to be faced with 20 pounds of strawberries in a span of a couple of weeks. I prefer a pint or handful every 3-4 days until frost.