We plan on putting in an orchard on our homestead. Last spring we planted a Montmorency Cherry tree (Prunus Cerasus Montmorency) which is classed as a sour cherry. I don't find the fruit to be all that sour though and you can find me right alongside the children, searching for any fruit the birds have missed.
We have one of these trees in our yard now. The cat is tethered near the tree and the kids play there as well. That also means we get a few more cherries than the birds. We've had this tree for about 4 years and get about 3 to 4 cherry pies from it (plus some eating cherries).
We first found a natural clearing in the woods where we want to locate our orchard, then we planted the tree. (My loving husband got to haul the 6 foot tall tree in its pot through the woods.)
BUT we don't want to go the usual route of planting a complete row of cherry trees. We are instead planning to plant a few fruiting shrubs, then a different tree, and continue in this way.
Right now our plan looks like this:
Another reason to sort the plants into groups that fruit at the same time is efficiency. We don't want to hop all over the orchard looking for trees or bushes which are ready to harvest.
We also plan to grow herbs around the base of the trees and between the other larger plants as a ground cover.
We found out about Stefan Sobkowiak and his Permaculture video through Facebook. His methods seem logical to me and so we'll slowly put the ones we like into practice.
Some of you might ask, "Why are things are going so slowly?"
Well, we don't want to get mired in debt. We want to do things our own way at our own pace. As soon as you take out a loan, you are put under pressure to pay it back. Sometimes you have to do things that you might regret later.
Last summer, money was tight. But we did manage to purchase and plant one tree in our future orchard. That is one tree more than we had before. Hopefully, this year thing will be better. But if we only end up with one other tree, we will still be moving ahead.