Before You Start an Apple Orchard

Before You Start an Apple Orchard

Every year orchards are purchased or planted by people who have no experience in growing apples. For some, an orchard will be a challenge and a source of personal satisfaction and profit. For others, it may be a source of frustration and a bad investment. It’s important to become familiar with the business of producing … Read more

Orchards: Getting to Harvest (and Preventing Pre-Harvest Drop)

Orchards, Getting to Harvest

It’s a goal orchardists work toward all season: getting the crop to maturity for a bountiful, high-quality harvest of fruit. Depending on marketing outlets, the timing of harvesting related to fruit maturity can differ. Orchards, Getting to Harvest Growers offering pick-your-own typically want as much ripe fruit available on the trees when the majority of their … Read more

Orchard Floor Care: Weed Control

Orchard Floor Care

Often, commercial tree fruit growers manage the orchard floor with herbicide strips in the tree row, and grass or dirt strips between rows. While herbicides can bear a weed management technique, there are other options for controlling in-row orchard weeds. Orchard Floor Care Read about:  5 Tips to Becoming a Successful First-Time Farmer Controlling unwanted orchard vegetation, … Read more

Tips for Dealing with Pests in the Orchard

Pests in the Orchard

Looking for bugs isn’t a nerdy middle school hobby – not if you’re an orchardist. It’s essential for tree fruit growers, no matter what spray program you use. – Pests in the Orchard Blanketing the orchard with sprays as a preventive may be someone’s idea of pest control, but a more cost-effective, rational and effective approach … Read more

A Beauty of a Ranch

Pears, peaches and much more A dirt road leads up a hill to Blum Ranch in Acton, Calif., where the Blum family has been growing peaches, pears and lilacs, and keeping bees for more than a hundred years. In 1891, George Blum, a Swiss stonecutter working in Los Angeles, was looking for a better life … Read more