Last year, I took the plunge and bought a new homestead property. Full time homesteading is my dream, and on today’s video, I’m taking the next step and planting fruit trees on my new homestead property! This will be a true permaculture food forest one day. Can you guess the fruit trees I planted? Come along and find out!
They stay the best time to plant a fruit tree was 7 years ago. Since I will not be relocating to my new homestead land for at least 5 years, I am getting ahead of the game and planting fruit trees now so they are mature and fruitful by the time I relocate.
Watch my Florida homestead property tour here: https://youtu.be/k3Jypf2QGAU?si=_C8xFHEZccH6kdrU
I use the following products* for growing fruit trees in my garden:
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Contractor’s Paper: https://amzn.to/3zhtxzS
Japanese Pruning Shears: https://amzn.to/3Mz3fw5
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15 Gal Fruit Tree Pots (10PK): https://amzn.to/4dSK2RY
Jobe’s Organic Fruit & Nut (4lbs): https://amzn.to/4cWfOgy
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Full Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/shop/themillennialgardener
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 About My Future Homestead
2:19 New Fruit Trees I’m Planting
3:55 Planting Fruit Trees On Vacant Land
6:21 Using Contractor’s Paper And Compost
8:02 When To Plant Fruit Trees In Florida
9:35 Final Thoughts
10:44 Adventures With Dale
If you have any questions about my new homestead property, want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!
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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B
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© The Millennial Gardener
#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #homestead #homesteading
41 Comments
If you enjoyed the video, please "Like" and share it to spread its reach! Thanks for watching🙂TIMESTAMPS for convenience:
0:00 About My Future Homestead
2:19 New Fruit Trees I'm Planting
3:55 Planting Fruit Trees On Vacant Land
6:21 Using Contractor's Paper And Compost
8:02 When To Plant Fruit Trees In Florida
9:35 Final Thoughts
10:44 Adventures With Dale
Hey, you should stop by next time you pass Valdosta on I75
A man with a plan!!! got to love it Thanks for the video!
Congrats on your new property!
You will need to "brush-hog" that field at least once a year to keep it open. Also, you stated at present the soil is crummy. As it will be a number of years before you reside there…have you thought about allowing an area farmer to graze his livestock there? Goats and sheep…especially Katadin…would do well there as would Dexter cattle. The soil will greatly improve and you may just eliminate the annual mow! They would set up their electric fencing powered by solar. Thoughts?
Awesome property. I know you are going to have a whole lot of fun there. The best thing I did was to purchase 10 acres in the country 7 years ago, and develop it every weekend (it's only 1 hour from our house, in Georgia). Starting to build a house there, as I retire this coming spring. I have mature fruit trees there, and great gardens, that deer enjoy as much as I do. We started with an overgrown field, just like yours, and chiggers and ticks were unbearable.
Congratulations, love watching your channel.
Brilliant!! Great planning! I never thought to plan that far ahead with my garden. I’ve always wanted a yard with mature fruiting trees. This gives me a new perspective for making my long term plans. Can’t wait to see and learn from your experiment.
Looking forward to seeing how these progress and good thinking forward to have some plants established. Any reason you didn't stake down or put rocks on the contractor's paper? Good chance FL storms will have that blown everywhere and your compost potentially gone with it.
Can feel the humidity through the screen lol!!!
I would consider planting something for humidity and heat management. Something that creates large shade in a low area.
Congratulations on your new property!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 You are one of my favorite gardeners!! I have learned so much from you!! Love & appreciation from Kentucky!! 🤗🦋🇺🇸
Beautiful forest and landscape there. Please retain a lot of that if you can, it's incredible to have that diversity on your land.
Congratulations my friend! Nice to see you going forward in accomplishing this dream! 🙂😃🌟
Help! I live in North Florida and started my sweet potato slips too late! Now I have these beautiful purple sweet potato slips(thanks to your videos) but don't know if it's possible to plant them this late in the season. Since it's Florida I was wondering if there's a way to go ahead and plant them and then bring them inside when temperatures drop about mid October? Can you grow sweet potatoes inside?
Congrats on your new property! Cheers to you and your continuing success
Sept 16 today , prayers for you ; strong winds/ rain
You are correct … trees will begin to reclaim the land. This is not necessarily a bad thing initially. I would let some growth happen for a bit near your fruit trees. Most fruit trees in Florida (I'm Zone 9a/b) do much better with a little bit of canopy or else they absolutely burn up. A lightly dappled canopy is joyous for our fruit trees … or at least having mid-afternoon shade with morning sun. See what is trying to "reclaim" the land and let those ones grow that will be beneficial as canopy for your fruit trees.
If this is in the Ocala area, I know a guy who might cut that field for you on the regular or at least from time to time to keep it under control. And if it is, welcome to the neighborhood.
Good luck! The deer have been having a picnic with everything I plant on my FL property. Hopefully they leave you alone
Nice selections of fruit trees cant wait to see the progress on your next trip
So interesting you have all those different kinds of soil in one spot!
Congratulations! Loved seeing Dale roadtripping!
I’m just started a few months growing fig cuttings and bought a 2-4 year fig tree that already had some figs but birds got them before I had the chance to try them lol what do you recommend to prevent birds eating the figs ? Also I repotted my fig tree into a 5 gallon bucket it looks like it is growing very slow, is this common to potted fruit trees ? Or more fertilization is needed, I currently using jacks fertilizer bloom booster, thank you.
Given the rapidly devolving state of affairs in the U.S., my wife and I are looking for our next house to have some land for more serious gardening. Gardening is tough in Florida, but it can be done. Where we are in SW Florida, October – April is basically ideal Mediterranean climate and pretty much anything outside of true cold weather crops can be grown. In the summer you should embrace perennials that you may not have heard of before, but that have very high nutritional content. Things like longevity spinach (or other tropical "spinaches"), katuk, moringa, edible leaf hibiscus (cranberry hibiscus, south sea salad tree), fruit trees including avocado. Embrace summer annuals like okra, roselle, sweet potatoes, cherry or Everglades tomatoes. Check out Cody Cove nursery for hot weather varieties of other crops like peppers. For soil improvement I'd recommend small amounts of activated biochar (studies have shown that adding too much is actually counterproductive), or tilling in peat moss. Adding some amount of bentonite/montmorillonite clay can also help with moisture and nutrient retention as well as reduced pest pressure. Oh, and also support species. While further north the deciduous tree leaves and ramial wood chips are great soil builders, down this way we have excellent options as well. Perennial green manurea/biomass crops like mexican sunflower (tithonia diversifolia), vetiver grass, fakahatchee grass, mombasa grass, Napier grass, pigeon pea and more are all fast growing perennials that are great for mulchinf and building soil organic matter. Anyway, good luck, and welcome!
Yay! 🎉 Congratulations! I'm so happy for you! Truly a dream come true! I'm excited to follow along on your journey.
About your thumbnail, volcano mulching is bad. https://youtu.be/fI12XNNqldA?si=PWlpAZqUW0bOdgxv
Can you grow mangoes there? And is it worth it to try citrus or is that invasive pest there?
If the avocado lives let me know
Dale used to be your dog, but no longer 😂 It's like he won't give you the time of day when your wife is around.
Thanks for the video. The paper is a good idea for a composting weed barrier.
I love the update. I would love to see if you could come to my house and check out my trees and give me any tips. I am in Wilmington as well.
Congratulations on purchasing your future Homestead property!! Can't wait to see how your "food forest" – comes to fruition !
Welcome to Florida. I tell folks I live in North Florida so you are farther south than I am. I'll sure pay close attention to the soil and things you are using for your fruit trees because all I have where I live is sand. Its harder to grow fruit trees in sand but, its doable because my dad had all kinds of fruit trees in his yard. My brother has a papaya tree growing in his right now with big fruits on it. Thanks for the video.
Won't the wind blow that paper away? Love this 🥰 can't wait to see the updates
You are very smart to do this part on your land. Good for you. I have my best friend in Ocklawaha. I love the country down there. I grew up in Naples, hate it down there.
Have you thought about planting any chestnut trees? They're awesome
Good luck with the Takaka on its own, better with a pollinator. Interesting choice of trees, seem much better suited for California
is that your property still past the tree line? if not when they clear the next site they might hit the tree
Why considering a homestead in FL? You are missing on all the fruit trees and shrubs that require chill hours and all the cool weather crops. Northern varieties are waaaaaay more valuable nutrition wise. If you looked at your crops from nutriceutical angle you would find that Northern zone growing gives you incomparably better bioactive compounds in your food, especially if you start with gut microbiome testing and identifying bioactives your body need and then researching for crop varieties and cultivars that maximize those compounds – you would end up at least in NJ, NY or PA😁, zones 5-7, better not even slide into 7.
It’s a genuine question. Maybe I’m missing something entirely. Why Florida? What valuable for your health can you grow there?
I usually just take off the plant tag and put it on the support stick 😀
I grew up in central florida, might end up back there someday when I inherit family property. Im about to go plant some more fruit trees in october. Plant some quick shade and nitrogen fixers to chop and drop with all that sun.
how did you clone the takaka? I managed to have a small cutting from a feijoia take root in a raised bed by keeping it near my drip irrigation mostly by chance. Just curious on how you propogated cause I absolutely love this plant!
Welcome to FL. Where the weather is known to be crazy.. not the politicians.