My Orchard/Squirrel feeder

tallyho8 · May 20, 2007

After Katrina destroyed many of my trees, I decided to replace them with fruit trees, knowing full well that our bumper crop of squirrels is going to get to eat more than I will. This is the first time I have ever tried growing plum, peach, apple, and nectarine trees and blueberries and kumquats. I planted them in the winter of 2006 and they seem to be doing pretty well so far. I just hope I get to taste some of the crop before the squirrels get them.
My cooking pear tree was loaded with pears the summer of 2005 just like it is now and the squirrels and possums ate them all in one weekend while I was gone the day before I was going to pick them. My wild blackberry bush is doing the best it ever has done this year and it is the only thing the squirrels don't touch. This winter I have to learn the proper way to prune the trees for maximum yield.

And perhaps I will invite a few of my friends who are avid squirrel hunters over.

Egon · May 21, 2007

Nice pictures.

jinman · May 21, 2007

Dudley, I think while the trees are small and the fruit is limited, I'd be tempted to net the trees with chicken wire or something to keep out critters. When the trees get big, you can afford to share a few of the fruits, but when they are small, you don't have that many to lose.

BTW: Those blackberries look terrific, bumper crop. I have a few wild ones that are making nicely. We'll try to get past the chiggers in about a month to pick enough to make a cobbler.

Robert_in_NY · May 21, 2007

I have never had any problems with animals bothering the apple trees here other than birds. The deer eat the apples once they fall on the ground.

On this note though, I was just given 200 young apple trees and will be busy planting them the rest of this week. My trees have just finished blossoming and I won't see any fruit like yours for a while still.

DieselPower · May 21, 2007

Got lot's of squirrels here and also have a fruit tree orchard. I don't think I have ever seen a squirrel in the fruit trees. Then again I have lot's of Acorns, Walnuts etc. for them to munch on.

Deer on the other hand love the fruit trees. It's kind of fun to watch then stand up on their rear leg's trying to reach the apples and pears.

tallyho8 · May 21, 2007

DieselPower said:
Got lot's of squirrels here and also have a fruit tree orchard. I don't think I have ever seen a squirrel in the fruit trees. Then again I have lot's of Acorns, Walnuts etc. for them to munch on.

Well, we've got Cajun squirrels down here and everyone knows a Cajun will eat anything.

DieselPower · May 21, 2007

tallyho8 said:
Well, we've got Cajun squirrels down here and everyone knows a Cajun will eat anything.

Sounds like miniature goats with long bushy tails.

schmism · May 22, 2007

sounds like good target practice!

WayneB · May 22, 2007

tallyho8 said:
My cooking pear tree was loaded with pears the summer of 2005 just like it is now and the squirrels and possums ate them all in one weekend while I was gone the day before I was going to pick them. My wild blackberry bush is doing the best it ever has done this year and it is the only thing the squirrels don't touch. This winter I have to learn the proper way to prune the trees for maximum yield. And perhaps I will invite a few of my friends who are avid squirrel hunters over.

Just wondering what the pear tree name is. In the picture it looks like it is pretty large? We have several pear trees here and the deer and moose are our problem animals. One thing for sure they take care of the low branch pruning.

I noticed in the apple picture there is a line of trees behind it. Are these also new fruit trees?

Everyone has their own way of pruning fruit trees, just take your time and open the trees to sunlight. Maximum yield is nice, I never seem to get it, but I hope to achieve nice looking fruit. A blemish or two really never bothers me.

I have an old fruit farmer right down the road and he cuts out most of the vertical sucker branches. Again it is an attempt to get sun light to the fruit during the growing period. He will cut back the leaders on newly planted trees.

I am always worried about cutting too much or getting the trees to look right (pretty as my wife would say). I have some older trees that I certainly don’t show my pruning abilities to too many people.

Great pictures of your blackberries! I put in fifty plants last year so we got to eat one or two and hope this year to be a bumper crop.

tallyho8 · May 22, 2007

WayneB said:
Just wondering what the pear tree name is. In the picture it looks like it is pretty large?

I don't know what the name of this variety of pear is. They are fairly common in this area and we just call them cooking pears because most people prefer not to eat them raw because they are not sweet. This is why I like them. This is one of the few fruit trees that Katrina spared and it is about 20 feet tall.

I noticed in the apple picture there is a line of trees behind it. Are these also new fruit trees?

Yes, these are 5 different types of plums and 6 types of blueberries and 3 types of kumquats.

Great pictures of your blackberries! I put in fifty plants last year so we got to eat one or two and hope this year to be a bumper crop.

I wanted to plant some of the thornless blackberries to try out but since we have so many wild blackberries in our area they said we couldn't do it because they would just cross-pollinate. I have a few very nice large wild blackberry bushes that I would love to keep but they are on piles of trash that I have to move and I don't know if I can transplant them or not. I need to study up on blackberries a little to see how to manage the ones I have because they produce so well. I took the photo of the blackberry bush after I had already picked a quart of blackberries off it, then decided I wanted a photo.

I'm trying out many different kinds of fruit trees so I will have something fresh in all seasons to munch on. I just wish I had more success with my avocados. I hope the new variety I am trying out now will survive the light frosts we get.