How to Start a Home Orchard (COMPLETE GUIDE)
Buy 1 fruit tree, get one 20% off: shop.epicgardening.com/collec... - We head back over to Kris's house, a member of the Epic Gardening team and @jacquesinthegarden and Kevin help her get an orchard started from start to finish.
IN THIS VIDEO
→ Heritage Raspberry: growepic.co/3JEhVse
→ Bluecrop Blueberry: growepic.co/3JBnXtK
→ Texas Pink Pomegranate Tree: growepic.co/49UTC4e
→ Brown Turkey Fig Tree: growepic.co/49YPrUK
→ Cherry Trees: growepic.co/3UlEx5V
→ Berry Plants: growepic.co/3we3loh
→ Fig Trees: growepic.co/3UABZlx
SUPPORT EPIC GARDENING
→ Shop: growepic.co/shop
→ Seeds: growepic.co/botanicalinterests
LEARN MORE
→ All Our Channels: growepic.co/youtube
→ Blog: growepic.co/blog
→ Podcast: growepic.co/podcasts
→ Discord: growepic.co/discord
→ Instagram: growepic.co/insta
→ TikTok: growepic.co/tiktok
→ Pinterest: growepic.co/pinterest
→ Twitter: growepic.co/twitter
→ Facebook: growepic.co/facebook
→ FB Group: growepic.co/fbgroup
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro
00:39 - Orchard Site Inspection
02:09 - Epic Fruit Tree Line
02:49 - Picking Out Stone Fruit & Citrus
10:46 - Selecting Soil Mix, Compost & Fertilizer
13:20 - Removing Raised Beds & Tree Placement
16:58 - Planting Pink Lemonade Blueberry
20:23 - Planting Trees
33:19 - Watering In Trees
34:37 - Fertilizing & Compost Mound
DISCLAIMER
Epic Gardening occasionally links to goods or services offered by vendors to help you find the best products to care for plants. Some of these may be affiliate links, meaning we earn a small commission if items are purchased. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. More info on our process: www.epicgardening.com/disclai...
Stoked to launch Epic fruit trees & bushes! More varieties (including citrus) coming soon! - Kevin shop.epicgardening.com/collections/plants
She asks all the good question and K and J anwer so effortlessly😅 I love it
It is so awesome to see Kevin gifting his employee an orchard. That's the kind of boss for me!
🙏🏼
Kevin, I've been watching you for years now and i can't tell you how happy and excited I am for you with your new business ventures like these fruit trees. This video was very informative and helpful as usual. Please do not listen to the naysayers who clearly don't appreciate your content or your business success. Your real fans like me are over the moon for you and will keep on clicking and recommending your channel to all be gardeners they meet! Much love from Texas! ❤
All feedback is helpful! Will be working to make our fruit tree offering even better.
I love the videos! Very informative and I get a kick out of the boys! I have been a long time subscriber and got my daughter addicted, too. 😁 She's bought many of the birdies beds and has a beautiful garden, now. 💚
More love from Texas! #Leander
❓❓❓ I'm in lower Michigan, My Peach tree was full of blooms just Beautiful, yesterday I noticed a few branches have very curly leaves. This worries me that I might be losing my tree. Is there something I can do for this the tree's about 5 years old. Thank You.
I really enjoyed the style of this video! It was perfect with Kris asking all the questions and Kevin and Jacques answering in a conversational style while they worked. It’s so helpful to see a makeover start to finish with all the decisions explained in real time. This is probably my favorite Epic video ❤❤
I love that she asked so many question, and they were answered so well and in such detail. Another great video!
So glad!
There's a lot of unnecessary hate under this video, and it's ugly. Thanks for the professionalism is taking the feedback in the comments and keep the vids coming! Would love to see a video about fruit trees in containers
Appreciate! We have a container fruit tree guide coming
@@epicgardening REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO CONTAINER FRUIT VIDEOS!
This makes me so happy, this is the exact video I needed. I have 4 new apple trees and I have been STRESSED about placing them too close. Everybody keeps telling me they wont grow at 7ft spacing. Thanks, Epic❤
As long as you actively prune, you'll be ok!
As long as the roots are well established, you can cut the fig trees down to just above ground level. They'll come back healthier & bushier than ever. We live in central Texas & that's the way to get a good fruit set. (Figs set better fruit on new wood.) Cut it back severely every 2 or 3 years & you'll have new wood for fruit set.
It's snowing today in Colorado, so gardening seems like a far off dream right now lol. Thank you for the glimpse of nice weather
Coming soon!
I'm in Colorado too we can make do with a green house that'll help a lot with keeping soil temp
Same here, I have a small inventory of plants to plant and our recent temperatures have been teasing my spade.
I bet Canadian's can relate 💀
Every new video from you and Jaques is always a breath of fresh air. It's inspiring to see other people in my age group being garden geeks. Can't wait to see how far Epic goes!
Appreciate you!
I started a orchard this winter, I have Stella cherry, Nanking cherry, Elberta Peach, Aztec Fuji Pink Lady Honey Crisp Anna apples, an apricot, Navel Orange, Parafarika Pom, Australian finger lime, desert king fig, a green olive, and Gage green Plum, and i still have so much more room to expand!
There ya go
Dang. You’re going hard! 😂
Wow! You have some incredible varieties
Wait is, "Aztec fuji pink lady honey crisp anna" 1 apple?
Great that you two are getting Kris setup with her orchard. I would have attempted to air-layer the top of that one tree though. Please give us an update in a few months, beautiful yard. 💚🌱 Excellent info.
We will!
These makeover videos are VERY helpful !
I'm so glad!
I just cant stop laughing when I see those prices on fruit trees and berries...here in Croatia normaln price is around 6 dollars.
This isn’t normal for US prices either. You can buy them at your local nursery for $6-$35 depending on the size and cultivar.
IKR!! 😆😆😆😆😆
Plus, once you have one Mulberry tree, you've got many, many more, every year for free!
I mean, they're probably pricing in shipping to most of the plants, and they're live plants, which really ought to be bought at a local nursery instead if you just want the basics. But they have some crazy varieties like a pink lemonade blueberry.
Yeah...here (in Romania) the prices for Thornless BlackBerries start from $2 and get to...let's say $10 for a "BUSH" of them.
I've felt critical at times of the kind of money that gets spent on the homestead. I can't hope to have all the fancy coops and greenhouses and ponds but you have truly been very good about all the criticism on here. Your customer will be ok with your prices and it's great that you will be trying to get them more affordable over time. I'm not your high end customer but I can learn to propagate fig cuttings, grow from seed and start with smaller plants for less $. The people who complain are ok to do that but as a business owner myself I know how hard it is to source quality for a decent wholesale price. Add special shipping to that in order to make sure the tree survives and is delivered in good health and it might be the best price one can get for the service. I'll trudge out to the nursery or ask for cuttings from friends. Rich people get theirs delivered. I'm sure we will both appreciate the fruit.
Kris is so lucky to have such an amazing team help her out! #Blessed! 💕💚
One valuable thing Epic Gardening has taught me is chill hours. I never knew berries needed that, nor had I ever heard of the concept. Pretty much knocks berries out of my possibilities in Florida. We're not "The Sunshine State" for no reason. 😅
Western Fence lizard, cool species ❤
Thank you for this video! We've been wanting fruit trees and now i know how to understand the tags on them. I wish you lived in my state. I'd love for you to see my Mom's garde. She's got lilacs that were full grown when she moved in over 65 years ago, beautiful Old Fashioned roses, bleeding hearts, foxglove, columbine, primrose, a rhododendron and so much more. It does surprisingly well with our clay heavy soil.
Would be awesome to see!
@amymandeville8342, sounds like your state is WA with all those lovely varieties in your Mom's garden 😀. I live here too!
@chrispennington5981 nope, I'm in NY lol. I just love the old fashioned flowers.
"Blueberries love an acidic soil" Me totally not about to dump my blueberry flavored coffee grounds into my blueberry plant to complete the cycle
Pruning is why I'm here please!
I'm planting uncommon and unusual fruit in my yard. I've got pomegranate, jujube, apple cactus, and pineapple guava so far.
Jujubes are amazing! I have two - Kevin
None of these are uncommon or unusual my guy. Besides jujube in the states
@@Mohilfc2 Aside from the pomegranate I haven't seen any of the other fruit anywhere. No markets in my area carry the fruit and my nursery had to special order the plants for me.
My home orchard is already 8 years old, I had space for 18 trees and opted for 3 apple (Jonathan, Starkrimson and Golden delicious), 5 pear (Williams, Jubilee and Bergamot), 3 plum (Stanley and Centenar), 3 apricot, 2 peach, a sweet cherry and a sour cherry trees. I live in a colder climate so peach and apricot varieties are limited by their ability to survive winter, but even if fruits are smaller than what you'd get from a supermarket it's still nice to pick them fresh from my own back yard.
Wow, you have some AWESOME pear varieties!
Had a neighbor who would trick his peach tree into thinking it had more chill hours by putting bags of ice near the trunk. The melting ice on the roots caused faked enough chill hours to cause the tree to lose the last of its leaves.
Pretty clever!
My grandfather used to put the branches he pruned off the fruit trees in water for three days. Then he would submerge them into an aloe leaf and smuther the goo all over it. Afterwards he would plant them in a pot until it had roots. Free trees every year
Love this technique!
This is awesome! Great to know!
Great work guys! Thanks for the tree education and the importance of the gradt versus no graft trees.
What a perfect video! I was just about to start planting some plants for my own orchard! This video will most certainly help!! Thanks, Kevin! ❤🌳🍎
This feels like an episode of “this old house” lol I’m here for it
Yes like HGTV 😂 the modern version I’m here for it
Nectarine pie? Say what?! 😮 Like how she got the boys to do all the work. 😉
We only have our apple tree that is left from our little orchard. We had everything we enjoyed to eat, apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries and plums. I do recommend getting two of each and all dwarf trees, all 6ft or taller if you are in a mid-to-northern state. Don't get the smaller 3 to 4-foot-high saplings, spend the extra money and get the larger potted trees to give yourself and the trees and good foundation to grow from. Dwarfs make life easier for the home gardener, especially if you are getting up there in age, it will be easier to maintain and harvest after they start bearing fruit. We made the mistake with the cherry and plum trees, many of those fruits went to waste every year after the trees hit over 20 feet. The birds, squirrels, deer and badgers were happy with the fallen fruit, but it did attract many unwanted insects too. We also set up bird and insect boxes around them for pollination. Our nectarines and peaches were out of this world!
Where I live in bellefonte pa there is really a place called my little apple orchard .. its right down the street
Some great tips here! Hope your remaining apple does well;
@@epicgardening Plenty of blossoms! ☺
She had so many good questions!
So glad i found this video, my partner and i have started a small orchard of peaches, plums, mulberry, calamansi, lime, valencia oranges, mandarins, mangos, guava, papaya trees in our south facing backyard. Planning on adding many more now that i have a bit more knowledge
You should take in consideration radiant heat from south facing walls effecting total chill hours for trees requiring chill.
100%
Loving all the questions Kris has asked! Really helped make the most of this video 👌
❤ Thanks. Enjoyed you helping. I have to prune mine more drastically to keep height. You show helps me be braver.
It hurts but it's worth it!
Kevin, could you do a video specifically on Pomegranates. You are by far the best at explaining gardening on KZhead so a pomegranate video would be great
Absolutely. I have two awesome bushes going right now.
@@epicgardening That’s awesome, can’t wait
Great video. I planted some blueberry bushes and an avocado tree about 2 1/2 years ago, and a peach and tangerine tree in March. All from nurseries. I'm learning as I go.
Thanks for another awesome video! Kris asked so many good questions! These are the type of questions that occur to me as I'm planting stuff as well. You should add a Kris q&a to the end of every video lol (jk i'm sure you're all busy enough)
Starting my own Permaculture, partially thanks to stuff like this. Thanks a lot :D
Sublime shirt "Local."
My sister and I planted our first orchard last fall.
Enjoyed it! Ive incorporated fruit trees in my yard this year. I believe everyone should have fruit trees in their yard.
This was a really good teaching video…she was asking great questions and y’all were doing epic teaching!
Please remember to do constant updates for her garden. 😊
Listen, you can't do this to me. My husband and I just moved into a new home with quite a bit of land, and I swore to him that we'd leave the outside to next year. Then, I planted 2 fig trees, in ornamental pots, bc the house should look good right? Now though I want a whole damn orchard. The slippery slope is real.
You know what you have to do...
So many great gardening tips. Thanks so much !
Perfect timing!!! I needed fruit trees!!!❤
Here in Greece bare root trees are mostly 3 to 6 euros, trees on pots 2to4 years old 6 to 15 euros, berries 5 to 10 euros
Omg!! Totally enjoyed this episode… thank you guys!! More episodes like this please
The local nursery ppl shop at, should already select fruit trees that grow well in that local zone.
You would think!
Thank you for all the information you guys shared to us
Great job. But the low bushes are northern Maine Canadian bushes. They do great in the freezing cold! That’s how they grow wild up here
Super helpful! I love all your videos.
Epic fruit trees! Epic Gardening aiming to cover all our gardening needs? GL on the new venture!
Fingers crossed!
@@epicgardening you got this!
Growing trees espallier is a great way to fit more trees in a smaller space
I would have loved it if they had chosen one of these trees for espalier. I've seen a fig espaliered in my neighborhood and it looks gorgeous.
Your area looks so warm ,and nice 👍 as compared to uk😅.
the epic orchard boys at it again
Awesome and very informative video! Thank you for all the hard work and time you all put into it!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I'm looking at planting an orchard this has been such an informative video. Thank you
Of course!
Be sure to let Kris Know that she can also make Tea with the Fig tree leaves.. I remember growing up when planting trees for the nursery we would water the hole then plant the tree knowing the homeowner wouldn't water.
So many infos packed in one video, definitely one of the things I want to have once I can buy my own property, Mini orchard.
Glad you enjoyed it!
My favorite garden guys!🌱🪻🌻🍎🍉
I always plant trees and bushes slightly high keep the top of the root system about 1 inch above the surrounding grade and your good 👍.
Are these all self pollinating varieties? Regardless, hopefully a neighbor has fruit trees near by to help pollinate. :) An arborist might advise to not step on the tree roots when planting, rather use water to help the dirt get all the way down, around and settled. Either way we’re trying to get the big air pockets out and for the roots to have full dirt contact. Especially in clay soil the roots could want to start wrapping around the tree and choke out the main root/trunk if the initial hole isn’t quite large enough. A lot of trees unfortunately come pretty root bound starting this process from the get go. These roots in the video today look really healthy so there’s much less and a chance of them wrapping themselves around. What a fun Spring project!! I’m glad to learn there’s cold hardy figs. Sweet! Watching the cherry get pruned was tough. 😂 I know I need to do the same thing on my new trees. ☹️
Excellent video. Thanks.
Would you ever consider doing a picture submission to do a garden makeover for a subscriber?
Yes
I'm trying to minimize the amount of pruning I have to do, especially going forward as I get older and may have more difficulty keeping up with that, so I'm only interested in drawf varieties now. They may still need some pruning but not nearly as much.
They still need a good bit as even dwarfs can go 8+ feet!
@epicgardening yes, 10' typically, which is far better than 20 plus. A lot of them are slower growing too. Such as my Wurtz avacado, which will be about 10' or so. Also called Little Cado. Beats a 40' tree, because here in South Florida the type grown commonly grows pretty fast, difficult to keep up with. Another thing I'm trying to add is drawf banana plants, harvesting from regular sized banana plants by standing on a ladder is dangerous, especially as I grow older.
I recently bought a baby dwarf fig tree called Fignomenal. It's not supposed to get more than a few feet tall. We'll see I guess.
@@MsSwitchblade13 Sounds cool. I'll have to research that, thanks!
anyone wearing a SUBLIME shirt has my vote!!!!
7:23 the hand rubbing and then the pose killed me
This video was jam packed with good information. Thanks.
Glad to hear it!
Would you do a video on fruit trees that do well in containers. Do to utilities, I can't plant in my yard.
Absolutely
Yes awesome request!
Air pruning containers pls.
Brilliant video. Great information and demonstration. Love you guys.
Our pleasure!
Awesome video. I’m just starting to add fruit trees to my space. I’ve learned a ton today. Thank you
Glad it was helpful!
3:50 as a canadian, this part is so wild to me. Where I live there are no fruit tree that are too hot, only too cold
I loved this video!
I have been considering putting in Fruit trees, but the area I wanting to people say is too small. Thanks for the inspiration.
Ì prune maybe 1/3 of my Eureka lemon every year to keep it manageable and it LOVES the abuse. But I made the nursery staff do the first shaping cuts on my baby apple...it felt too painful.😢💚
Haha it's a familiar feeling among all of us! Hurts to cut
I wish I could get the Acid mix here, would have made my life so much easier with my blueberries.
Starting avocados is super easy, throw the seed in your composter and a few months later you should have sprouted seedlings
And an unproven variety unfortunately!
Sawdust is one of the best blueberry mulches, it raises the acidity of the soil so you might get even away with a less quality soil
Good tip!
In case anyone missed it when they were talking about the lemon planting, in the words of Aaron from Garden Answer, "Plant em high, they won't die!"
Indeed!
Would be Epic to see a follow up in about a years time to see how well everything is going, and if anything should have been changed. Especially around time when to prune the various branches into the proper shape.
We will!
Man, this video was perfect. The only way it could have been better was if it had been in Florida, where I am!
This is great! I have a weird yard with no flats spots, just slopes. Would love to see how to do this on a slope
I would also love to see a slope garden video. My backyard is all cement instead of a hill and the slope is a pain to plant on. Would love some tips!
They said it was a slope that they were planting on hence the donut rings to keep water n nutrients drom just running downhill.
Kevin, I love you and I adore your channel as well as Jaques , but I got to say "are you getting ready to do the Napoleon dynamite dance “ Your shoes remind me of his ! I can’t help it.😅😅😅😅♥️♥️♥️💚🌱💚🌱💚🌱
I give my wife a hard time about being a sucker for the colors and packaging at the grocery store. The fact is I do the same thing in a garden shop! :)
We all do!
I love this video, but as someone who lives in Utah zones 6/7, I need to add the Chicago Hardy fig is not reliably hardy to zone 4 in the sense that you can expect to harvest fruit. In my experience, temperatures below 20° will start killing top growth. Once you hit the teens, it will die to the ground unless you protect it. If a Chicago Hardy dies to the ground it will likely grow back, but whether or not you get figs totally depends on how long of a growing season you have and how late of a spring you have. Here in Utah you may get a few figs to ripen if we can avoid the late spring freezes (May temps in the teens happen quite often) and early fall frosts (we can have snow mid September). Covering your figs in colder climates really helps increase the possibility of being able to harvest ripe figs. I just thought I would add this for your cold climate subscribers who love figs!
Covering is best in zones lower than 6!
My favorite channel has once again done it! I'll watch everything you guys upload. More experiments like with the tomatoes please! 😃
We're running 10 experiments right now!
Very nice ❤️ Thank you ❤️
Kevin, Would be very interested in seeing how these have developed after 3-months, 6-months, a year... Thank you. 😊
Good idea!
It's a great layout, I hope Chris invites back for an update in later months :)
Next video on how to prune fruit trees. Also treating with copper etc
Hi Kevin, was wondering if you can make a video of up potting in details. I have a owari satsuma and a meyer lemon tree in a 10 gal pot for two years now. How do I know it’s time to up pot it into a bigger pot (15 gal?) without taking it out of its current pot? Then lets say after I up pot it to 15 gal, how long can I keep it in the 15 gal before up potting again? Is there a common knowledge about up potting? Do backyard gardeners keep up potting every couple of years ? I’m a 60 years old lady who don’t have the strength to keep up potting to 20 gal, 25 gal pot. Since I don’t have anymore space in my small backyard, What can someone like me do? Like after says 3-4 years in a 10 gal pot, can I take it out and trim all the roots at the bottom and the sides and put it back into the same 10 gal pot? Please if you can do a detail video explaining how to do it, I would greatly appreciate your insight and help. Thank you
@epicgardening I'm interested to know your opinion on mulberry trees. You're video library covers many different gardening plants/vegetables/fruits/trees but not Mulberries.
I love that lady's shirt
Figs!!! Can we get a video on figs? I really want to have a few fig trees. I only have one right now because i wanted to try growing one. I have thankfully been successful ❤ i want some other veriaties but not huge trees. More like dwarfs. Im still not sure on when to pick them.
Fig pruning video coming soon!
Plus figs are super easy to propagate so include that in the video.
Great detailed video. I can't plant a tree at my rental; oh wait, maybe a container nectarine?????
cool and all proud of you.... but those prices will keep me far away.
Understood! We'll work on them, lowest we can get currently as we're just starting.
More of a concern to planting fruit is: will you be around when it matures, soil composition, and in my area, critters (insects, bird, or animal) you may need to protect. My area (Texas) hill country has a deer problem who will prune tops or eat all the leaves off young trees so ALL shrubs and tree plantings are fenced.😢