Growing Guides

A box of freshly picked Wealthy apples
Plan a harvest that lasts three months, not three weeks
Twelve trees that ripen the same week is twelve bushels in one weekend. Here's how we spread a Missoula harvest from July to October, and how to do it for... Read more...
A Montana Mango apricot held above a bucket of freshly picked fruit
The orchard as a system
How a systems ecologist thinks about an orchard: draw it, find the stocks, watch the loops, time the pulses, count what's free, and change the rules instead of the numbers. Read more...
Zard apricots ripening on the branch
Growing apricots where winters hit -30F
Apricots crop here if you can get them past April frost and midwinter thaws. Late bloomers, prairie apricots on Manchurian roots and good siting do most of the work. Read more...
A bucket of freshly picked Siberian C peaches
Why we grow seedlings alongside grafted trees
A grafted tree is a clone you can count on. A seedling is a brand new tree. Here's why we grow both, how we select seedlings for cold, and what... Read more...
A Red Splendor crabapple in full pink bloom
Apple pollination in cold climates
Every apple needs a different variety blooming with it. How our bloom groups work, why triploids need two partners, and why crabapples make such easy pollenizers. Read more...
Water for young trees in dry country
Drip goes on the day you plant, and the root zone never dries: a deep soak at least once a week, twice in heat, daily on sand. In zone 4 and colder, taper in mid-August and stop by late August. Read more...
Dolgo crabapples in the hand; Dolgo is one of our seedling rootstocks
Rootstocks for cold country, and why we use ours
Roots are the weak link in a cold winter. Why Bud 118 and Manchurian carry so many of our trees, and how all 24 of our rootstocks compare. Read more...
Comfrey in bloom with purple bell-shaped flowers
Feed the soil, not the tree
We've never used a -cide. Here's how we feed fruit trees through the soil instead: compost at planting, wood mulch, leaf feeding on a schedule, and tests before guesses. Read more...
A large Haralson apple held in hand
How we rate cold hardiness, and how to read our zone ratings
We zone every plant to the coldest night it has actually come through, not a 30-year average. Here's what a bare 3 or a 3b means, and how to check... Read more...
Winter protection for young fruit trees
Paint or guard the trunk, wrap hardware cloth above the snow line and fence deer at 8 feet. How we get young fruit trees through a cold-country winter. Read more...
Training young fruit trees and the cat, goat and calf rule
Wide crotch angles, limbs that grow out instead of up, and room to throw a cat through a dwarf tree. How we train young fruit trees, with Bob Purvis's pruning rules. Read more...
What to do when your bare-root trees arrive
Open the box, check the roots, soak them and get the tree in the ground. How we plant bare-root trees and get them through their first year in cold country. Read more...