Trees - siting

Here is the list of fruit trees, and where they'll be planted.

Back or side yard

1. Apple (Sweet, early & mid)
2. Apple (crosspollinator)
3. Apple (Sweet, mid & late)
4. Apple (crosspollinator)
5. Apple (Baking)
6. Apricot
7. Avocado
8. Avocado (crosspollinator)
9. Banana
10. Blackberries
11. Fig
12. Nectarine
13. Peach
14. Peach (crosspollinator)
15. Pear
16. Pear (crosspollinator)
17. Sweetie

Over the patio on latticework

1. Grape
2. Kiwi
3. Kiwi (crosspollinator)

Off the patio for cooking

1. Lemon
2. Blueberry
3. Blueberry (crosspollinator)

In the garden

1. Strawberries (with the asparagus)

One of the great things I like about Permaculture is the idea of solving many problems with one solution.  Heck, I hardly ever do anything for just one reason. Anyway, an example is:  we want to keep the vultures from swooping onto the patio.  So putting a cover over the patio would work, but even better would be to lattice these fruit vines overhead: shade when it's hot, protection, fruit, good use of space, and a warm sunny spot for tropical vines.  Also, how cool would it be to just reach up and snap off some grapes and kiwifruit?

The lemons and blueberries are good to group because they are different heights and would fit together well in a kind of four-cornered pyramid just off the patio.  And they're pretty and smell good.

Asparagus is tall and feathery and strawberries are low and solid.  So the strawberries will keep the weeds from being too obnoxious, shade the soil as a living mulch, and share a bed with the asparagus for a good use of space.

The back and side yards are planted with the big trees because there's quite a slope.  The trees' roots will help keep the soil in place and since we don't have to traipse into the orchard to gather fruit from any one tree but one month a year, a less-usable slope is a better place to put less-needy crops.  Those that need a lot of water will go at the bottom of the slope, and those that need warmer climates can be on the slope with some stones behind them -- both retaining wall and heat sink to help the trees.  Higher maintenance trees will go closer to the house.

Fun Fact for this post: most fruit trees are delicate lovely things, and most are grafted onto good hardy rootstock.  Sometimes other kinds of grafts are done as well, such as 'fruit salad' trees, which have many different varieties on one trunk.  This is how you get an apple and its cross-pollinator on the same trunk; peach, apricot, nectarine & plum trees all in one; cherry varieties on one trunk; or even pear & asian pears on one tree.