I should have done THIS to my Fruit Trees Years Ago!

[@glenhac5973]

I have a couple of old abandoned historic apple orchards around where I live! 4 trees had the most beautiful bug and disease free apples! Picked 2 barrels full and have been injoying them! Almost all gone! 😢 yes I believe 💯% everything has to do with soil and how they are grown! I could of got 2 more trees but the bears got to them first. I can tell you they ate the apples and pruned the trees at the same time!!!!!! Broken branches tips galore!!!

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Nice. Bears are the best disseminators apple seeds in the natural apple forests of Kazakhstan. I would graft more of those trees. Nothing beats easy and those trees are easy.

[@insAneTunA]

Always good information. 👍

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Thanks 👍

[@julie-annepineau4022]

I learned the hardiness zone lesson last year. Lost 2 of my 3 peach trees to a 24hr cold snap 2 zones colder than what we usually get here. The survivor was sheltered by spruce trees.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Changes are inevitable

[@timothypollard4332]

I have learned that peaches survived the best sheltered by other trees. Even deciduous trees offer some shelter.

[@pdudy8261]

Very good first tip!

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tomandtinadixon]

For some of us, one zone colder is going to be hard to find trees for. We are in the northern edge of zone 3, so I do try to find perennials that will tolerate zone 2 and experiment with others to some degree of success. But fruit and nut trees, I try to find what people have grown here for decades, or what would grow as a wild variety (hazelnuts are one, but ours struggle because they are up on a dry spot). Deer are a HUGE problem in our yard, so we are trying a version of the double fence idea in the hopes it keeps them out of our main garden and tree area. If it works, we will be doing a mini-orchard there paired with our annual veggie garden and perennial food plants and medicinal herbs.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Wonderful, at the limits like that stick to your zone. In a really cold winter some tree cultivars may die back to the snow level. Luckily snow gathers well below the trees when shrubs and perennials are used. You can always overgraft to cvs that resisted the cold. Keep pushing the limits.

[@tomandtinadixon]

@@StefanSobkowiak we have discovered that surprisingly, some that are supposed to be zone 4 or 5 perennials will survive here, even in spite of some (or alot!) of neglect. Those are definitely keepers!

[@susanchapman4140]

Merry Christmas Stefan !

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Thanks, same to you Susan.

[@4helex]

Just yesterday (in BC) I raked up my apple tree leaves and bagged them. I also have two massive American Beech trees that drop about 50 wheel barrow loads of leaves so raked them up and mulched the apple trees deeply with them. Once the apple tree leaves break down I'll add them to the compost. Hope this helps. Great video.

[@Valkyriepedersen]

what about the worms in the compost??

[@donaldduck830]

Nope. I put the leaves as mulch in my garden and use ripe compost as fertilizer for the trees. Definitely better not to spread disease and in the beginning, leaves suck up nitrogen. Which is ok in winter, but we need to be aware of that and ripe compost will replenish all nutrients immediately when you apply it in spring when the trees start to sprout new leaves.

[@janking2762]

Our winters in zone 6b ( now moved to 7a) haven’t seen 6 b low temperatures for maybe ten years. Last two years the ground never froze. So, plan for warmer winters 🎉and summers.

[@donaldduck830]

Lulz, plan for failure. You got lucky for a few years, I had a very bad and cold winter last year and lots of damages over the last five years with totally failed harvests due to frost. Really, don't confuse luck with an actual trend and don't confuse propaganda with scientific truth. The last decade was the coldest since the 1970s. The levels should have been downgraded, not upgraded. Currently we are at the height of the solar cycle, in a few years the bottom will drop out from the temperatures.

[@gregoryhatt6475]

Picking up drops is #1 for a reason!

[@darrencorrigan8505]

Thanks, Stefan.

[@josephjude1290]

Lovin this information

[@maha333g5]

Thank you!!! 😀

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Glad you enjoyed

[@kennethreynolds1847]

I wish i could buy a dvd with all your fantastic videos

[@StefanSobkowiak]

You can, we have a 2 hour dvd available at: permacultureorchard.com or on Amazon

[@janking2762]

The deer in my area eat up the fallen apples and, leave fertilizer behind them.

[@morethanmortal8362]

Do they eat your trees?

[@Ritsumei30]

I've had good results from trench composting kitchen scraps in years past, so last fall I burried the majority of my wormy apples, fairly deeply, right under the trees. 😬 At the time, I was thinking I'd return all that nutrient to them, but now I'm concerned that I filled the area with all the worms. Uff. Now I've got to go learn about the life cycle of codling moths, if I can! Thanks for the info!

[@StefanSobkowiak]

It’s all part of the learning. You can setup a bird feeder near the trees and they’ll clean up some of them.

[@geraldkaupp5380]

Bugs dislike Horseradish and Comfrey.

[@elijahsanders3547]

Excellent video! Diversity (such as a foid forest) will also provide a home for predators to "bad" insects and make it harder for such insects or disease to go from tree to tree.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

You get it.

[@lauras5312]

thank you for sharing

[@thatguychris5654]

When a Polish-Canadian talks about apple trees....you listen 😉

[@human4805]

I heard planting sum garlic around fruit trees, gives the soil extra Sulphur and helps pest control. To my surprise the 1st year (in ground) 5' tall spindly sapling grew 7 huge apple last season. Not sure if it was goodluck or the good soil + garlic.

[@Pocket_Champs2023]

Chop up the leaves and mix them with leftover compost you made in your own forest from leftover plants.

[@trentnicolajsen3731]

healthy root development of both deep tap root and horizontal roots not packed by heavy tractors or hindered by herbicides, and soils with diversity of organsisum to make "soluble nutrients" seems to prodce healthy trees resistant to various diseases and infestations, as well as not us being is a rush to grow a bigger top heavy tree with shallow roots. Pruning to let in the sunshine to the lower parts of the tree not only helps air circulation and and reduce some scab, but its giving the space for the bats to catch the coddling mouths. we can try and spray to reduce such mouth putting the larvi in the apples, yet the new hypothesis is that when the pioneers brought the apple trees the coddling mouths came along as well. We have done many crazy programs to try and eradicate such insects, but if the bats do not have the insects and such protein they will go somewhere else, or even such organic sprays might not be healthy for bats, and there immune systems. thus a certain amount of insect bites are always going to there even in the most well kept orchards. just as dandelions that originate from Europe, are symbiotic to orchards and bees, codling mouths might also be symbiotic as feed for bats. what seems to happen is we might still get up to 40 percent bug bitten apples, small amount of scab or russet still are reasonable good apples for storage, while the bug bitten apples are processed soon in to things like apple cider vinegar, or other apple products. apples thus produced in a more of a permaculture method might be seen as more valuable then a heavily sprayed industrial or organic orchard. as the diversity of bacteria on the fruit skin natural waxy surface and blossom core restores our gut healthy also the pre-biotic of the fruit itself with enzymes, pectins, and fibre.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Sounds like healthy fruit.

[@morethanmortal8362]

Very helpful thank you!

[@juliawitt3813]

Thanks for this. My young fruit trees have all been spoiled this year by making the eating the leaves to lace and the fruit lost to the worms....I don't like all those chemical sprays....but after this year its very tempting....thanks for the tips....

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Glad it was helpful!

[@realvipul]

you lucky living in temperate climate. i live near equator coastal area. fruit trees have no idea what season it is. as a result even citrus don't do well. only rice does well here.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Lucky? You can grow year round and have fruit and nuts on trees all year. Each climate has it’s + and - just work with what you have. I guess you’ve never experienced -20, -30 or -40C.

[@falcolf]

I used to collect yard weeds and burn them - now I leave them on the lawn and let our lawnmower mulch 'em, feeding our lawn all three growth seasons!

[@bluespangle]

I use all my kitchen garbage and fallen leaves for making compost, which I distribute among my fruit trees by burying it in the soil.

[@Julian_Wang-pai]

Brilliant explanation and advice, thank you very much 😊 little bit of advice from me: mulch your trees, really.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

So nice of you. I would love to mulch them all but i dont have access to 6-12 tractor trailer loads of mulch every year.

[@katallen4021]

I really like your video. But, if your area doesn’t freeze, should you still keep the old leaves? Will the disease remain?

[@StefanSobkowiak]

If it makes you feel better you can remove leaves and add compost.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

If it makes you feel better you can remove leaves and add compost.

[@donaldduck830]

I sincerely suggest to rotate. Put your tree leaves in the garden and compost from the garden under the trees. Also, grass and mowing the lawn are important to keep shoots from the roots down. There are reasons our ancestors planted orchards the way they did. Optimum fertilizer is of course keeping fowl (geese or chickens) in the orchard.

[@eswaribalan164]

We in Borneo have kerengga ants. We take a small nest and stick it on our manggo trees. And holy mackeral, they keep the tree absolutely free of any kind of fruitfly. Manggos are simply perfect. Just maybe l should start a business selling kerengga ant nests..❤

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Absolutely, imagine the marketing stories “ant protected, NO PESTICIDES “. Go for it.

[@krystalpayne878]

I was looking at the courses on the website you mentioned and was curious, do your courses include digital or pdf downloads of the information for quick reference?

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Some have added resources: sites, downloads. You also can take notes with each video and view all your notes or print them out.

[@Valkyriepedersen]

I have peach and apple trees full of worms..............I was thinking about wood chips and nematodes??? I love the diversity idea I got mint

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Probably too many fallen fruit left below the trees. Sanitation is first step to cleaner fruit then proper nutrition.

[@blablabla1000able]

Good content but I feel like there are a bit too many cuts to B roll/stock video

[@amessnger]

I enjoy those cuts. Everybody is different. To each his own.

[@farmerjhemp]

How many different varieties were the thousand lost trees?

[@StefanSobkowiak]

11 most on the flattest low spots

[@davidsoloninka7742]

My apple trees have wonderful blossoms but no apples, what do I need to do? Thx ds

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Sounds like they need a pollinating partner. Check out my videos on why your fruit tree is not producing fruit.

[@shanemillard608]

Quick question, you mentioned some about chill hours. What if you're in an area where the trees can wake up too soon and be hit by a frost (peaches and plums for example). Should you buy varieties that have higher chill hours like reliance? That way they wake up later?

[@amessnger]

I live in an area like that. Lots of late frosts and freezes every year. We expect around 1200 chill hours here on average. I don't plant anything that requires less than 1000 minimum. I want them to wake up late, not early. I have a long growing season. I don't mind getting a crop later, but I won't get one at all if a freeze destroyed the blooms or young fruit early on. I also search for disease resistance varieties that bloom in the late (or D) catergory.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Good question. Not sure what the best strategy would be. In such cases I would ask locals that have had good success with their fruit trees what cultivars have proven reliable, resistant to the spring and disease.

[@shanemillard608]

It looks like around here (Northern Kentucky) that they don't grow a lot of peaches and plums commercially because of the issues with frost. It looks like it's more apples and pears here. Any suggestions?@@StefanSobkowiak

[@fromjunk2newstuff]

I have the same problem of losing most of my flower blooms to a late frost. This very early spring has a preventive measure I will white wash my tree trunk with lime. Hoping it will reflect some of the sunlight, keep the trees cooler and in dormancy a little longer. Just trying to delay the blooming an extra week or two. The lime wash will also have other benefits. Prevent sun scorching, fungus, some insect... Below is a link with more info. There's is no mention of blooming delay. I am hoping the reflective effect of the white paint will keep the tree cooler and in dormancy just a tad longer.🤞 www.nps.gov/articles/limewash-an-old-practice-and-a-good-one.htm#:~:text=Painted%20in%20tree%20trunks%2C%20limewash,disease%2C%20sunburn%20or%20frost%20injury.

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Grow apples and pears. Otherwise you need a site with fantastic air drainage, steeper slope or a north slope to delay spring.

[@Manonthemoon777]

You look very handsome with the beard, Stefan. Would you say that tree is a good example of reincarnation?

[@janew5351]

Does planting garlic at the fruit tree base help to deter farmfull insects?

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Some

[@hydrotilling7043]

🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾 this guy is all over the place for us. He tells you to chop up everything around it then he tells you to plant stuff all around it. I think it’s a good idea you plant things around it also after you disintegrate everything with my technique but what are you going to plant? That’s the most important I recommend Yarrow can take a cutting also but it is the cure for diseases. And it makes a very good pollinator for everything And about Mr. grass I highly recommend you purchasing grass killer. It only kills grass, not broadleaf plants you remove that out of that entire ecosystem on your property and you could have anything Mr. grass is super territorial and impossible to get rid of it

[@Ritsumei30]

We used a combination of dig-flip-bury, sometimes followed by cardboard to smother it. The grass died. I don't like chemical weed killers in general, but I'd be extra reluctant to use them beneath fruit trees! Anyway, the grass isn't do bad to kill in my yard. However. I've been stunned by the abuse that violets will withstand, though!

[@cresentiae]

Thank you #savesoil #Consciousplanet

[@Gene-kl1br]

Chickens ducks pigs steers bees are your friends. Food , insect management , fertilizer , sales $$$$$ .

[@ruthannmarie7119]

Well , a worm shows at least not poisonous

[@dantheman9135]

Thanks... Crush on...

[@sonyabarkwell6077]

I listen to many Videos you made,and now I am confused 😕!In some of them you say do this your Trees will like that and then you go and say on no don't do that you will have other problems,so which is it?

[@Pocket_Champs2023]

You have to decide what you can bear

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Give me an example of a contradiction with the context.

[@pewdiepieDL3]

Olimba ssebo. Amagi gebiwuka tosobola kugasala

[@donaldduck830]

WARNING! Don't put walnut or several other types of leaves under your fruit trees, or you won't have any harvest at all.

[@limgeyleng5056]

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@morethanmortal8362]

I second this!

[@JoeLBlack707]

Chopping leaves is not very convincing

[@DrRock2009]

I’m struggling to see how running a mower over leaves changes disease efficacy? Better to gather and compost in a >50degC compost pile to kill off any pathogens then apply as a mulch/feed? 🤷‍♂️

[@StefanSobkowiak]

Chopping gets the leaves mostly broken down by spring, since pieces of leaves lie closer to the soil where fungus and soil critters get to work breaking them down quicker than if they are floating above and between the blades of grass. It’s kinda like wood chips versus whole branches. Both will break down but wood chips break down much faster than whole branches.

[@tommykirrane653]

Just grow in yer yard/garden what grows naturally there. Yes cold can kill young trees, but them same trees florish in the wild! Sometimes you have to look at nature and learn from it!

[@donjohnsen6052]

This is much better poisoning the bees with pesticides and other crap.