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redsun9

Planting Fruit Trees on a Builder's Berm

There is a builder's berm on the side of my yard. It is about 12' wide (foot to foot of the berm) and about 100' long. It is covered with turf grass.

Since this area is not used at all, I'm thinking of planting some fruit trees on the berm. Things to consider:

1. Deer pressure. This area is far from the house. I do not want to build deer fence since the berm is also close to neighbor's yard. I can build some tree guard for young trees.

2. The berm is not very steep. But watering is still an issue. I plan to plant the trees on either side the berm, midway between the top and the foot. So the pattern is a zig-zap shape. I still need to water the trees manually at the beginning.

3. The distance between the trees should be long. So I can drive the tractor lawn mower to cut the grass.

With this situation, I'm thinking of planting some Jujube trees, like 5 of them. Then two chestnut trees at the end of the berm. The chestnut trees may be too large. I can't think of anything else. I could plant 7 Jujube trees, but that is too many for me. The trees have to something deer does not have a lot of interest. I know I can't plant apple trees here without a deer fence.

Comments (13)

  • missingtheobvious
    9 years ago

    When was the house built? Are you the original owner?

    Do you know for certain what's in/under the berm?

  • RedSun (Zone 6, NJ)
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    The house is about 10-year old. The field was farm land. Builder gave us the option to have the berm, or have the soil dug from the foundation taken away. We chose the berm option. So the soil is just the soil dug out when they built the house.

    We have another berm at the far end of the yard. Builder planted more than 20 trees on that berm, as wind breaker.

  • missingtheobvious
    9 years ago

    Just wanted to be sure you didn't have construction debris buried there. Builders have been known to do that....

  • missingtheobvious
    9 years ago

    Just wanted to be sure you didn't have construction debris buried there. Builders have been known to do that....

  • RedSun (Zone 6, NJ)
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I replaced and planted some trees on the other longer berm. I did not see much difference with the soil when I dug the old tree out.

    Of course since this is the soil dug from the building site, it is not rich. 10-year lawn mulching helps in some regard.

    Jujube is drought-tolerant. From what I read, it is not very demanding with soil. It is also relatively maintanence free.

    Other than that, I can only think of nut trees. The trees should be landscaping type, not orchard type.

  • olpea
    9 years ago

    I purposely built berms/teraces on my orchard, so I could plant the peaches in the top. This was done at considerable expense to protect peach roots from water logging. I lost a lot of peach trees from soggy soil before learned this lesson. I know of one other commercial grower in this area who also went to considerable expense to plant peaches in the tops of berms/terraces.

    Here, peaches planted on flat level ground decline from too much water on their roots most of the time. NJ may be different. I think soils are lighter in NJ.

  • RedSun (Zone 6, NJ)
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    This is interesting.

    All my fruit trees are on a gentle slope. So they do not have wet feet.

    The builder built the berm to slow down the rain water. Our land is higher than our neighbor's land.

    Now I run out of real backyard room. I just dug out my perennial beds and relocated all bulbs and daylilies to other area. This area is a very large area, but we never go there. Only kids sometimes run over there to play.

    My concern is mainly drought. NJ summer can be brutal (just not this year). I lost a couple evergreen trees on the other berm. The soil is mainly clay, not rich. It is hard to run water hose over such a distance.

    Is persimmon tree drought-tolerant?

  • glib
    9 years ago

    I planted many chestnuts seedlings in my backyard, and regularly the deer would destroy them. But two large chestnuts (5 gallon pots) near the house, survived and are now nice trees producing quality nuts (too bad I sold the house in 2008). so go big with the chestnuts. I would also plant mulberries, why have fruit only in September? They are just as undemanding as jujube.

  • RedSun (Zone 6, NJ)
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Good to know about chestnut tree. I think deer would damage all young trees if not protected. Not sure if deer loves chestnut tree as much as tulip and apple tree...

  • appleseed70
    9 years ago

    Redsun: Deer love persimmons more than anything else...they'll choose persimmon over apple. In fact, Walmart is now selling persimmon trees for food plot planting. I think Lowe's is in on the action too.

    Persimmon does however (American) grow very nice and straight with very pretty bark. Everything loves dropped persimmons too raccoons, skunks, possum...you name it.

  • alan haigh
    9 years ago

    Berms help peaches in most soils in the northeast as well, based on my own experience and, more importantly, quite a bit of research- they are often recommended in university guidelines for peach and blueberry production.

    I should think they can only be a disadvantage for most species in droughty (very sandy or hydrophobic) soils, but one as wide as your berm would allow the creation of individual "craters" to help each tree establish if this is the situation. If drainage is good this can be helpful even in the flat to make watering easier until trees are established.

    Chestnuts are full sized trees and need about 30' space as a minimum. I'm experimenting at keeping mine more compact with pruning but I don't know how that will work long term and it's a lot of work. Once they plug in they grow like crazy.

    If you plant chestnuts, I recommend you get your trees from a source that has grafted trees so you can get really good nuts from them.

  • RedSun (Zone 6, NJ)
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Here are some pictures of the berm. I think the width is about 20'.

    {{gwi:123660}}
    Side view. Neighbor's house in on the back. Photo still does not cover the entire berm.
    {{gwi:123661}}
    {{gwi:123662}}
    Front view.
    {{gwi:123663}}
    Top view.
    {{gwi:123664}}
    Another berm with mostly evergreen trees.

  • alan haigh
    9 years ago

    Nice site for a real mixed fruit orchard.

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