What is up everyone? Welcome back to the Epic Gardening Podcast.

Excited to have you here today and excited again to have Melissa Norris on the

podcast. We're talking about planning a miniature orchard. So this is something that, like I said

in yesterday's episode, I've just been obsessed with and I like the word mini,

Melissa, because you know I grow in small space and to be able to even have a couple

fruit trees would be a big win for me I already have one but adding a couple more

it'd be amazing and of course as I expand out into to more space that would also be on my mind in a big way, maybe even a macro or

a normal sized or orchard, but I would love to know what you have to say about setting up or planning your miniature orchard.

Yeah, I'm super excited about this topic because a lot of times we focus on our annual vegetables,

but doing your perennials and your fruit, even in small spaces is very doable.

So when you're planning your mini orchard, and this is the basis of everything I am when

I'm growing my food, is one, planting what you and your family like to eat I know that seems so

simple and almost silly to say but sometimes we get a little carried away when

we're looking at nurseries and seed catalogs and all that stuff and we want to do all

the things.

So really focusing on what you and your family like to eat.

And then second, what's going to grow in your climate easily?

Now when we're talking fruit trees specifically one of the things we need to keep in mind

is chill hours.

So some of your trees, especially your fruit trees, if you don't have a certain number of hours that are below 40

degrees Fahrenheit during the winter months then you're not going to get fruit

production or a very very low poor fruit production out of those trees.

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