Hi - I think a great way to get started with fruit trees is to experiment with growing them in containers. Dwarf Fruit Trees are ideal for this.
he best way to find out about your locale is building up your own direct knowledge where you can experiment with placement to see how they go. An expert can tell you something but knowing for yourself through experimentation is the way to go.
When started out containers sounded like a neat idea. But after a few years of gardening they sound like a collosal pain in the butt.
My concerns with containers are keeping them watered, having to supply all the nutrients, and root maintenance. None of those things sound any fun to me.
Yes you certainly can have more to do in the beginning but with the dwarf fruit tree, particularly an evergreen such as a lemon or or other citrus you can move them inside if you like or when you find a spot that any of the dwarf fruit trees do well you just dig a hole and transfer the containered tree to the soil.
also - in particular with an evergreen tree but really any fruit tree if it's already in a container it's a cinch to put in the back of a friend's trailer and give it to them to try on their property where perhaps it will do better. then just pick up a different variety and experiment again.
this way you find the trees that are happy at your home
in the long run i think it's way less painful than waiting years for full grown trees to mature in the ground only to discover they aren't happy in your spot.
I noticed this question went unanswered for quite a while, most likely the problem being: none of us live in or near Central Louisiana… Most of us are Oregonian’s.
I appreciate the idea of containers. Some friends and fellow fruit tree enthusiast's had started their original ‘orchard’ long before purchasing land. HOS members and nearly neighbors, I’d always ask how their trees were doing inside their containers. There never seemed to be a fatal problem, though they appeared ‘stunted,’ but their owners were extremely anxious to get them permanently planted. Eventually they did. But I’ve never heard of ‘testing’ a variety by leaving it in a container.
Had I tested my place with container trees: the apricots would likely still have died; peaches ending up with multiple terminal illnesses; pears attacked by pear slugs; deer having chowed down on nearly everything within reach (not to mention the bear); apples with aerial crown gall and anthracnose …whereas the persimmons and figs may still have thrived – had I sunk their ‘pots’ into the ground to keep the roots from freezing solid…
I’ve always thought trees, purchased anyway, would have far better odds of success being planted directly in a permanent ‘hole’ -- Allowing for instant and uninterrupted (had you’d dug that $10 hole for your $5 tree) root expansion and maximum top growth. Maybe I’m a ‘gambler,’ and I admit to having placed a third tree in 'one location' (replacing the prior two), but 75% of the time the tree or vine lived and continues to produce. And if there were varietial problems, it was grafted to something more desirable.
The original question being: “I live in Central Louisiana and am wondering what types of fruit trees can I plant and when. (such as plum, apples, peaches, etc.)†[And] “It is now June and I am wondering what types of fruit trees can I plant now or when can I start planting, ie. plum, peaches, pears, etc. We live in Central Louisiana†…
I’d take some good long walks through your neighborhood – now! Generally, what’s being grown are the success stories of others. And if you find someone pushing the limits, with ‘unusual’ varieties – pick their brain! --They’d most likely be the same kind of ‘crazies’ as we are out here! I’ve never been down South – but would love to check it out. And I’d hoped someone familiar with your area would have picked up your question. You can always hunt for local groups, as we prettymuch are; usually those putting the time in to learn are more than happy to share their knowledge.
As far as the potted trees, thanks for the input and link – keep at it 
super conversation happening here.
the key to testing fruit trees in containers is to grow them with Dwarf root stock - in other words to get your experiment started you get Dwarf Fruit Trees rather than an ordinary fruit tree. You'll experience way more success as these trees are successfully grown now by the millions and are meant to be "stunted." too funny. They are bred and grafted specifically to be small and well suited to containers.
Once you see how the dwarf tree is doing you can decide if you want to try the regular full growth tree there; however, for any home garden there is really no reason to go with full size trees. A dwarf tree will yield plenty of fruit that you will actually eat when it's ripe, will more likely be able to harvest even when you are old with a crooked back - because you can reach it! - , and the tree is so much easier to care for in pretty much every possible way.
joshua,
Let me backtrack and second the welcome to the board 
I think you will find many of the participants here are enthusiastic growers of fruit trees on quite a variety of rootstocks including apples that fit your Dwarf Fruit Tree criteria.
I'm all for size-controlling rootstocks, and maybe I'm just lazy, but I'm just not so thrilled about the prospect of trying to keep them happy in a pot. It seems like performance in a pot isn't really a good indicator of how a tree will do in my location compared to if I were able to plant it in the ground and mulch it real well. Compared to that the potted tree will have many disadvantages to overcome.
I suppose if a neophyte fruit grower wants to find a tree he cannot kill, the pot might be a good way to go as a screening tool to find a particular specimen with a strong will to live 
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Or perhaps some of the upfront work you are talking about with the dwarf tree includes plumbing drip irrigation to the pots?
It just seems to me that growing a fruit tree in a pot has less likelihood of success for a new fruit tree grower. For instance, there's a whole world of choices between the extremes of growing a tiny M27 apple tree in a pot and planting a vigorous apple on a full-size seedling rootstock.
If choosing tiny apple trees why not just plant them in the ground where you think you might want to keep them. If you don't like them or they don't perform well, they are pretty easy to dig up and transplant or give away. Part of the reason they stay so "dwarf" is because they hardly grow any roots. That's one of the challenges in keeping them happy. They are much less tolerant of allowing the roots to dry. That is compounded when you put them in a pot because it is much more difficult to keep soil in a pot optimally moist without some sort of timed irrigation or a lot of doting.
[quote="mrgreenthumb":y3v599zc]I live in Central Louisiana and am wondering what types of fruit trees can I plant and when. (such as plum, apples, peaches, etc.) 
[/b][/quote:y3v599zc]
Like Viron, I didn't reply right away because I don't know much about fruit in Louisianna. That's in spite of the fact that my father grew up on a tenant farm near Baton Rouge.
In general its commonly held that the best time to plant fruit trees is when they are dormant, especially if they are bare-root. Around here in the NW that could be any time from say November through April.
I think the suggestion of finding out what else is growing in your area is a good one.
Figs are a fruit that are generally very easy to grow and I know they must be grown in Louisianna to some extent since there's a variety with LSU in the name.
They will know. They are usually master gardeners. Also if you go to a local nursery they could tell you what varieties tend to do well. You probably have local gardening clubs, radio shows and TV shows. Some varieties that you could grow there better than we do here: Pecans, citrus, watermelon, che, palms, okra, your native haw, eggplant, perhaps pomegranates.
My two cents,
John S
PDX OR
I think the number one reason we fail to follow thru on their wish for more trees, greenery of any kind and fruit trees in particular, certainly true in my own case, is that we hesitate to get started and experiment.
that's why i recommend containerized dwarf trees. though you certainly don't have to keep them in pots and the above points about putting them in the ground are great, nevertheless the container gives you a real advantage if you think about it ahead of time as an experiment that has so many flexible options that even failure is made into a success.
If the tree doesn't do so well, or we don't do well keeping it, or we decide we don't like it afterall (doubtful) then we can move it inside our house or into a friend's house gifting it on to a happier home - this is another reason I suggest starting with an evergreen tree - usually citrus - (my pick - lemon!)
we can just move it inside or give it as a gift to someone else who will appreciate it. The key is to get started. We'll be more likely to experiment when we know we have flexible and versatile options.
Experiment. I invoke Ruth Stout here - the experts and everyone with an opinion really don't have any monopoly on knowing what will happen for us. Ruth proved em all wrong again and again doing the impossible or confounding the established general practice.
We need to think it through with some versatility and flexibility in mind then we'll commit to get going with fruit trees - which is a joy once we are under way actually getting at least one to show up at our door and be a part of our learning and life.
For every point listed in the above paragraph I always suggest starting with Dwarf Meyer Lemon Tree the 3 year old version - it's all those points plus the fact that everyone everywhere has a ready idea of what to do with some extra lemons - lemons are universally called for as ingredients in every culinary lifestyle everywhere on the planet and lemonade is always a fallback!
we can get it online shipped right to our door, and we just move it around to sunny spots that are convenient for us to care for it. It's an evergreen that's always attractive even inside the house, and we have gotten going with generating some of our own experience with fruit trees.
If we need a fallback position in case of failure, we know that we can always gift it on to someone else we think should be inspired to have their own little lemon tree to get them going or add to their home food or greenery scene.
I realize that we all want to plan out the perfect landscape, research perfect local knowledge no what to plant where for our zone etc, and then do a big install of the perfect fruit tree selection(s) but such grasping after foreknowledge perfection leads to not getting around to doing it.
let's just get ourselves a little tree or two or three and start experiencing fruit trees now. regardless of the climate zone, regardless of the location, regardless of the species the local experts (if you can find them) claim to know are the best etc.
Find out some local knowledge for ourselves with very little to lose - the key to that is just getting going with something versatile, flexible, and universally appealing. my vote - an evergreen - preferably a dwarf lemon in a pot.
love to hear some other views on a good starter fruit tree to gain first hand experience with the joy of growing your own food on your own trees.....
…I think I’ve got it 
The dwarf potted fruit trees are being suggested to encourage the average homeowner or apartment dwellers to consider growing fruit. A noble goal! But by the time most have found this site they’re doing their homework and are ready to plant.
We’ve a “Make-a-tree†program that can land quite a few custom grafted pre-ordered fruit trees in someone’s lap for very little money... Combine that with our annual custom grafting and scion exchange, with the rootstock of your choice - and it’s hard to find a better deal.
I did my homework, and made my mistakes. The outcome is an orchard consisting of only those fruiting plants that worked, all others were replaced. And people like us rarely leave a void! …most have a couple of ideas for replacements for the next causality…
If the promotion of potted dwarfs lead to more fruit growers, great! But for those ready to plant, the cost and effort of doing so isn’t that much more (and likely less) than investing in a trial tree.
Also, consider those with acres and wildlife. I’ve poor soil and lots of deer (and elk & bear); my mistake was planting “Semi-dwarf trees!†I should have done like my ancestors apparently did and planted all I could on ‘Standard rootstock.’ Then done my best to prune it yearly … as they hadn’t~
Different strokes! But it’s nice to find our collective enthusiasm’s aimed in the same direction: home grown fruit!
Dwarf Fruit Trees in pots certainly can't really be usefully mulched - if they are citrus they will love peat mixed in or even top dressed -
but what they really love is Compost Tea.
http://www.dwarffruittrees.org/composti ... ompost-tea
steve diver being the world expert i always run into when talking to folks who've found the miracle working fall back of compost tea.
it makes a fantastic spray too.... and is always my miracle worker #1 with any unhealthy fruit trees....
http://www.dwarffruittrees.org/dwarf-fr ... -tea-spray
compost tea (or bokashi effective micro-organisms) is really easy to make right at home. I don't do the fancy aeration footwork - just soak a bag of compost right in a garbage can for a couple days then put in a spray bottle and a watering can and apply to all my fruit trees
I love compost tea, but I would argue with Steve Diver being the world expert. We make our own. It has saved many, many plants. My vote goes to Elaine Ingham, the "mother of compost tea".
Check out her web site:
If you really want to get geeky into it, try the yahoo groups site, although it mostly is for people with commercial interests in it, not so much home orchardists:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/g.....a/messages
John S
PDX OR
Hi Plumfun,
I think I've heard that comfrey has many nutrients, so I think it would work for that. I have no info about fall blight. You could try to find out if it is a fungal or bacterial disease. Using aereated compost tea, I categorize all diseases into fungal diseases and bacterial diseases. With a virus, there's nothing you can do. I tweak one compost tea toward bacterial diseases, and put it on those plants, and I tweak the other tea toward fungal diseases, and then I put it on the plants affected by them. It works really well for me.
John S
PDX OR
Hi John,
It may well be instructive to all here to learn of your methods. Being that tomato blight is fungal, I would be interested in learning how to fungally incoporate comfrey into a tomato spray.
Also, you best recommendations for bacteria biasing would be interesting as well. Maybe start another thread?
My squashes usually get mildew which is fungal. T'would be cool to have a comfrey based antifungal spray that would extend the season!
Thanks!
Fungal would include mostly wood products, oatmeal, corn gluten, nut husks, fibrous things that don't rot quickly. It's better if the wood has been left alone. When you see the white fibrous threads, that's good. Don't strain it in socks or anything too tight. It will kill the long chains of fungus that you need. A paint strainer bag, available at paint stores for $2 , works great.
Bacterial would involve things that rot quickly: red wriggler worm poop, refined compost that is mostly green leaves,grass, and old food products.
Both do better with diversity.
Aereated compost tea is alive if it's good, so you need to spray it, not during daylight direct sun, and get it alive into the plants, largely through the leaves to kill disease. You can't store it. It is an event, not an object.
Manure tea is a good nutrient base, but it doesn't kill disease like compost tea, nor does it reestablish the healthy soil food web.
John S
Very cool John. I never knew that fixing biotic plant spray was so fun.
So if I mixed dried comfrey with sawdust, moistend a little and let it colonize, does that sound about right?
Should I go to the forest floor for fungi innoculants?
Are lichens worth anything as innoculum? They are 50% fungus. And they are very resistant to sunlight.
Bread yeast is fungus. Ever heard of anyone spraying that?
Do you see any value innoculating the comfrey/sawdust with oyster mushroom from the store, just for a quick fungus growth, to be sprayed at a later date?
What is the best innocculum is what I am trying to say!
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/comp ... sage/22270
This is a great yahoo group dedicated to compost tea. They are even discussing comfrey, mushrooms, and other methods. I use glacial dust as a sticker, ground fish, kelp, molasses, and either old wood for fungus, or compost mostly for bacterial. It's a new field, plumfun, so you might make some new kickass discoveries. I just know that what I have done has worked really well, it's cheap, and organic.
John S
PDX OR
Thanks for the encouragement John.
I read once that people could dilute milk with water, blend in some lichen scraped off rocks or trees (mortar and pestle sounds good) and they would spray or paint this mixture on cinder blocks or old concrete. The lichens would colonize and cover up whatever bare cement. The dilute milk would provide its initial "anchoring" meal.
I may have to try some of these ideas. An easy test plant would by my crookneck squashes that are a magnet for mildew in the fall. And tomatoes, that seem to get a rot when the fall rains start.
I've got plenty of forest floor rotters, for easy innoculations. Lots of different lychens too.
I understand that some bugs have special fungi in their guts. Maybe a few of them ground fine and used for innoculant.
This could turn into some real wizardry! LOL
That yahoo link of yours would not let me in. Said my cookies were off. I know for a fact they are on. too high tech for me!
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