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permaculture

Fruit Walls

Posts: 12

Location: New Brunswick, Canada

posted 1 year ago

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I'm interested in knowing if anyone has attempted to create fruit walls. We are considering attempting them for our orchard project, we are in zone 4b. We have plenty of rock piles in the surrounding forest from when the field was cleared. Our soil has a lot of clay in it, that I plan to use as well. I would like to have my compost production on the backside of the north wall, and would like to be able to heat the wall in extreme cold weather. We are planning to make them 9' tall and 30" thick and crinkle crank. We would love any ideas on how we can make this project a success. Thanks

Thomas Crow

Posts: 58

Location: Taranaki, New Zealand

posted 1 year ago

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We haven't - our climate doesn't require it. It's worth reading the Low Tech Magazine article about them if you haven't - be careful, the website is super addictive.

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-farming.html

S Bengi

pollinator

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Blocking the wind will make a huge difference.
Day time temperatures are fine, its the niight time temp that is the "killer", so the thermal mass of a wall will help alot.

What exactly are you trying to grow that you are not able to grow?
The following will grow in your zone 4 without any fussing about with fruit-wall/greenhouse:
Apple
Pear
Plum
Persimmon
Mulberry
(possible PawPaw)

Cornelian Cherry
Elderberry
SeaBucktorn
Currants/etc
Raspberry/Blackberry/etc
Aronia
Juneberry/Serviceberry

Grapes
Hardy and Arctic Kiwi

Pecan/Walnut/Heartnut/Hickory/Butternut/Buartnut
Hazelnuts (American/Chinese/European/Hybrids)
Chestnuts
Yellowhorn
Ginkgo

Let me know what you think of the list?
https://www.hardyfruittrees.ca/product-category/all-trees/
http://nuttrees.com/edible-nut-trees/other-edible-nut-trees

Iterations are fine, we don't have to be perfect
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Kris Hurtubise

Posts: 12

Location: New Brunswick, Canada

posted 1 year ago

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We got hit with a -38 last winter that took out our reliance peach and artic frost peach. That's a great list, we have most of that growing. Not sure how our kiwi will do.
We are on the line of zone 5b/4a, I'm thinking we are more of a 4b but with some freak cold weather we are probably best to grow zone 3 or lower. We want something that will ensure our trees survive and this seems like a solid way of doing it, albeit massive undertaking we feel it might be our best low-tech, low maintenance option.

I would love to get different ideas on how to heat the wall when the temps really drops. Preferably something that doesn't require electricity. I'm off to check out that low-tech magazine site, thanks.

john pannacciulli

Posts: 13

Location: Somewhere between Boston Worcester Providence.

posted 1 year ago

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Thankyou Thomas for posting the article on fruit walls!

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-farming.html

Had to subscribe after reading this article.

Anne Miller

steward

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Location: USDA Zone 8a

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Kris, welcome to the forum.

Have you looked into creating a microclimate?

This book:

https://permies.com/t/138107/Permaculture-Ideal-Microclimate-Aleksandar-Stevanovic

This thread:

https://permies.com/t/171230/Simple-illustration-microclimate

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Robert Ray

gardener

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Location: Cascades of Oregon

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posted 1 year ago

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Have you thought about building the wall with the idea of incorporating sun wells in the structure? A convoluted wall would also incorporate divisions for the composting side as well.

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

Anne Miller

steward

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Robert, what is a sun well and how do you incorporate that into the scheme of all things permaculture?

I asked google who gave me some kind of a game.

A search of the forum didn't turn up anything either.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

Thomas Crow

Posts: 58

Location: Taranaki, New Zealand

posted 1 year ago

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Being originally from Texas, I'm still learning about how cold works, when it happens, and what comes along with it after a few years in Beijing and a few more here in New Zealand. It only gets cold here when the sky is clear (not your kind of cold). So if I were looking to build a fruit wall here and make sure it was warm enough I'd probably look at some research on Google Scholar about the latest innovations in solar water heaters and see what new coatings they're using to transfer heat. Most of them will be graphene and, if you're a DIY person, Robert Murray Smith on YouTube will have some videos about making graphene at home.

If you want something you can heat up more than that, incorporating a rocket mass heater into the design seems to make sense - particularly if you super insulate all the areas where trees you care about aren't growing.

Robert Ray

gardener

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Location: Cascades of Oregon

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A sun well would be an alcove in a wall that allowed the heat to be trapped, giving the tree/plant a little warm hug around it on more than one side like an espalier would. Sometimes they are sunk a bit. A mini sun trap on a wall or structure. Protects from wind more than an espalier and traps heat. Something that might allow a frost cloth to brought over a cold sensitive plant using the wall structure to anchor the frost cloth.
https://earthundaunted.com/gardening-with-sun-traps-and-sun-scoops/#:~:text=But%20the%20physics%20behind%20a%20sun%20trap%20can,terraces%2C%20experiment%20with%20deep%20inner%20curves.%20More%20items

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

Anne Miller

steward

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Location: USDA Zone 8a

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Thanks, Robert

Sun traps got me to a lot more threads about using sun traps for microclimates.

One thread suggested using hugelkulture as a sun trap which I thought was a good suggestion.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

Robert Ray

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Location: Cascades of Oregon

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A hugel bed around a suntrap would be great, the added access to water and nutrients. The compost on the other side would bleed nutrients over as well as creating heat, I would guess.

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson

pollinator

Posts: 1341

Location: zone 4b, sandy, Continental D

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Kris Hurtubise wrote:I'm interested in knowing if anyone has attempted to create fruit walls. We are considering attempting them for our orchard project, we are in zone 4b. We have plenty of rock piles in the surrounding forest from when the field was cleared. Our soil has a lot of clay in it, that I plan to use as well. I would like to have my compost production on the backside of the north wall, and would like to be able to heat the wall in extreme cold weather. We are planning to make them 9' tall and 30" thick and crinkle crank. We would love any ideas on how we can make this project a success. Thanks

It looks like your growing zones vary from 3b to 5b. I'm in 4b Wisconsin. Perhaps you have to refine which fruit you can grow/ are most interested in. 9 'tall is the height of a tall room and 30 "thick certainly is thick enough to amass a lot of heat. Crinkle crank walls, I had to look that one up and it took me directly to New Brunswick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crinkle_crankle_wall
In France, we always called them serpentine walls and they function really well facing south with fruit grown in espaliers.
Good luck to you. It is quite a project!

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Kenneth Elwell

pollinator

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Location: Boston, Massachusetts

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Kris, heating the wall might be a fanciful idea... there is a thread about a season extender rocket-mass-heater (links to season extender RMH stuff) However, it seems like a slightly different mode than creating a less severe microclimate for your fruit trees, more of a ward off an early frost to save a crop sort of thing... With fruit trees, I think you would still want it cold for them to go (and stay) dormant, just not too cold! On the scale you describe, it might be quite a job to fuel it and tend it, considering it would be during some seriously cold (possibly unsafe to be out in) weather.

The convoluted wall and compost berm to the north sounds promising. You would not only reduce the losses to the north side, you might actually be creating some heat if done right. Question is how much heat the southern exposure will gain from the sun, and shed from the compost pile... The berm could also just be earth, if you didn't have the need/ability for an amount of compost the whole length.

An idea that comes to mind is the Chinese greenhouse, which you are on your way to building with the wall and berm. If you keep on building, by adding some greenhouse bows, and had the option of rolling down some greenhouse film, blanket, or mat during the coldest weather events, you might be able to gain a zone or zone-and-a-half of protection. No fuel, just materials and effort to manage them.

Nails are sold by the pound, that makes sense.
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Kris Hurtubise

Posts: 12

Location: New Brunswick, Canada

posted 1 year ago

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Thanks for the links and references, great reading. The fruit wall article and connected article about China building passive solar greenhouses was interesting. I'd like to create the horseshoe microclimate using trees/shrubs with hugel bed and will likely try something like this but I'm getting on to 50 and the fruit wall will be faster. After seeing all mass heaters at Wheaton Labs and being blown away by the efficiency, I think I'll have to figure that out for the walls. Thanks all, given me plenty more to think about and more research that will likely lead to more. I will post the project on here if we attempt it.

C. Letellier

pollinator

Posts: 960

Location: Greybull WY north central WY zone 4 bordering on 3

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It is on the dreams list but no action taken here. Also 4b bordering on 3. Want a few things that are zone 5, is the reason. Peaches and pecans in bigger stuff and several brush fruits.

Country oriented nerd with primary interests in alternate energy in particular solar. Dabble in gardening, trees, cob, soil building and a host of others.

Anthony Powell

Posts: 121

Location: NW England

posted 1 year ago

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My fear is that, with all that compost just the other side of the wall, your fruit may receive too much nutrition - especially nitrogen, that would encourage aphids. I lost a cherry through proximity to a compost heap.
I like the Chinese greenhouse idea, a way of keeping the heat around the fruit plants. Or you might put the lot under a polytunnel, and capture more of that heat.

Hans Quistorff

gardener

Posts: 1895

Location: Longbranch, WA Mild wet winter dry climate change now hot summer

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I spent 9 years across the ST. John river in Maine so I know how those arctic blasts feel. I was thinking about how the wells would fill with snow which would protect from the arctic blast but harbor rodents to chew on the bark.

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Robert Ray

gardener

Posts: 3221

Location: Cascades of Oregon

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Kurt Kholsted wrote an article: "Fruit Walls Before Greenhouses" that might be worth a look.
https://99percentinvisible.org/article/fruit-walls-before-greenhouses-walled-gardens-created-urban-micro-climates/
I am wondering if the French greenhouse of the 1800's that used manure to heat the structure had an over abundance of nutrients that was detrimental to the crops. Could using a pallet composting set-up with a fruit tree in between each pallet bin be an experiment to explore.
Low technology had a similar article:
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-farming.html#more

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

William Bronson

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Location: Cincinnati, Ohio,Price Hill 45205

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While it isn't a fruit wall these three chicken wire rings filled with leaves surround this raised bed on 3 sides, leaving the southern exposure open for sun.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/BpmFUngRvVnJCCc26

Edit: Heads up, this stored on my Google Photos account.
I'm on an Android and the choice to download from my account has seemingly dissappeared.

Filename: com.google.android.apps.photos.Image.PDF

File size: 6 megabytes

[Download com.google.android.apps.photos.Image.PDF]

Download Attachment

20221217_135151.jpg

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G Freden

pollinator

Posts: 696

Location: West Yorkshire, UK

265

posted 1 year ago

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Mine's not a fruit wall but a fruit fence. I live in zone 8a, but we don't get a lot of summer sun/heat usually, and the fence helps trap the heat. It's kind of hard to tell in this photo, but at the left is the start of the fence with a fig tree (and a grape vine), and then at the concrete post in the middle is a morello cherry, and the little red apples of a Sparta at the right edge. Beyond that (not pictured) are a Laxton Fortune apple and a seed-grown quince sapling.

I keep all the trees pruned down to about the height of the fence, around 2 m; despite being so small, we get enough fruit for both fresh eating and preserving. Having them against the fence makes them a lot easier to net too (a must for the cherry tree). And obviously, my vegetable beds are immediately in front of my little trees--it's a very nice little microclimate.

Editing to add this photo from spring 2022, of the Sparta and Laxton Fortune apples.

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Kris Hurtubise

Posts: 12

Location: New Brunswick, Canada

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Hans Quistorff wrote:I spent 9 years across the ST. John river in Maine so I know how those arctic blasts feel. I was thinking about how the wells would fill with snow which would protect from the arctic blast but harbor rodents to chew on the bark.

Yes, we learned to wait on the mulch until the cold sets in or the voles nest in there and kill the tree. I need more cat’s.

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