Soooo basically that's 12 fruit trees and a few elder bushes and two pecans, I assume still babies?
My late grandmother and grandfather had a small village garden plot of about 900 sqm, so 0.22 acres? They had like 30 well grown fruit trees in there. We're talking 50 kilos of apples per tree size. That was besides the 100 sqm grapevines in vineyard style rows, a bungalow and fireplace and carport, and every free spot that was not a narrow path was planted with vegetables and flowers.
So yeah, I think you have plenty of space left and you should look into smaller fruit bushes that grow well in your area to fill the niches between the fruit trees and plenty of herbs for underneath them. And after you have those layers established, ground would be much more shaded and suitable for strawberry ground cover! :)
That's like a ton and a half of apples! 😍
So much space, everywhere. I'm just meditating lately on how to best make use of it all. There's only one baby pecan tree out front, and I want to plant corn out there too. The blackberries are propagating well, so I should have plenty more of them next year.
Right, but they were different fruit trees! I don't remember all, but there were apples, pears, cherries, sour cherries, peaches, apricots, plums, figs, mulberry, walnut, hazelnut, almond and I'm sure I'm missing something! Gramps was a big supporter of the "what do you mean I can't plant another tree" school of thought!
I like your grandfather a lot :)
I'm wondering if I want a small vineyard like you said he had. With some kind of herbs and animal fodder growing underneath... 🤔 Got my wheels turning now.
That white panel fence is a perfect location for 10-20 stumps of cordoned grapes! Simple to do and you already have the infrastructure to support the whole thing in place!
Here's some inspiration!
https://www.fassadengruen.de/en/horizontal-cordon.htm
Only 12 fruit trees! These new ones will make 20, which sounds much more reasonable.