HOw To LOCATING A MINI ORCHARD

After I mowed over the weekend, we roamed around planning (and daydreaming).  Here is our dilemma.  We have some fruit trees on "standby"...bought and being cared for but still in containers until the Fall when we plant them and of course we'll be buying more.  There are two places we are trying to decide between.  We have already planted a few trees scattered around the property but it turns out they are too far from water sources and therefore, much more difficult to care for.  

So we've narrowed it down to two spots:

The first spot is here.  

This is just behind the house.  

Our backyard I guess you'd call it.  A big, wide open space with a water faucet on the back of the house.  This space is bigger than the other one.  Plenty of room for the trees, and we'll still have space left in the backyard so it's not like we're giving up our yard.  It's not too close to the house either, this picture is a bit skewed.

Here is the second spot.  

This is directly behind the garden.  

Again, water access is pretty easy, coming right from the garden.  This spot is smaller but still enough room for just the fruit trees, which is all we are needing.  The thing with this site is that we had thought that it would also be the perfect spot for a future greenhouse but that is still a few years down the road and we need to get some more fruit trees started now. Plus we have many more alternate places for a future greenhouse.

Both areas have the space, both would provide privacy, with the one behind the house providing more personal privacy (somewhat hiding the back of the house from the property behind and whatever someday ends up back there.  The one behind the garden would sort of shield the garden from view as well, not that that is so important.  The backyard is bigger and gives us more leftover space for future use.  The backyard would also be closer to the house for easier monitoring.  The garden  of course would be right there with the vegetable garden so it's sort of like working it all at once, having tools and things already nearby if needed.  Having large trees could, someday of course, put part of the garden in the shade.  

The soil is the same in both spots so we are going to plant the trees in 4x4 raised bed boxes to give them a better head start.

We have to make sure we are happy with the final spot because wherever we decide, they are there forever...