For those who know apple and other difficult fruit trees

[KristyHall]

I am looking for apples, peaches, and plums that may grow well in an organic orchard here in the south. I know most commercial breeds need spraying and constant tending to produce. But I am hopping some fellow organic and/or sustainable enthusiasts could help me find a strain that would do well here in the southeast.

 

[Kassaundra]

I know apples are hard in the south, but I thought peaches and plums were easy here. (I'm south too just a little west of you)lol

 

[KristyHall]

Quote:
not without a lot of care and pesticides. i have three peach trees. don't get a single peach off of them before the pests get them.

 

[fuzziebutt]

I live in NW Alabama, and we have more peaches than I want to put up! We moved here about 13 years ago, and planted peach, apple, pear, and fig trees. The peach tree is rocking, and the apple tree finally made a good crop this year. The fig and pear trees haven't done any good. The only thing that hubbo does is he prunes them way back every fall. And we planted the grapes, muscadines, and scuppernogs. And they are all doing great.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I have a Golden Dorset apple that does quite well without any particular regimen of care. I think the only time it gave me any grief was the first year when it caught fire blight, and I had to cut off most of the trunk. That was five or more years ago. Some years it has a really heavy crop, others a lighter crop. I don't recall ever spraying it for pests, or fertilizing it. I also have a (huge) pear tree (not sure what kind, it dates back to the early '70s when the house was new). Never fertilized or treated it with pesticides, and only have problems with bugs if I leave the picked pears in bags or baskets for more than few days. At our old house I had a fig tree, and always had problems with bugs and birds getting the fruit before I could.

 

[Hoss1975]

There is one of those organic orchards not to far from here,i heard they spray a combination of nicotine and caffeine to keep the bugs away,is that still considered organic?

 

[weimarmama]

I've always heard that about apple trees, too, that they didn't do well in Alabama & then it's only certain varieties. I wanted to try them this year, but we decided to plant citrus trees, instead. We've had scuppernongs planted here for 8 yrs & used to have a fig tree when we lived in town. We'll definitely be adding one of those here because I miss biscuits with fig preserves on them

You may have already seen this, but here's an ACES article on apple varieties: http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1138/

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

What is a scuppernong?

 

[weimarmama]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuppernong

Growing up, I only knew them as scuplins & I had no clue that scuppernongs were the same thing until a few years ago actually

 

[Razadia]

We have a peach tree in our back yard. It does great. My grandmother had it grafted to a very young oak. We've got saplings from that tree all over the yard for one reason or another. The newest of the saplings is 2 years old and kicks out more fruit than we can stand. We have a cherry tree in the front yard that my dad planted a few years ago that put out the first spring it was here.