Grow Your Own Backyard Orchard

A bare-root tree is a dormant plant lifted from the nursery field with no soil around its roots. It is lighter, easier to plant, and establishes faster than a potted tree — it simply needs to go in the ground while still dormant in spring.

Several compatible varieties are grafted onto a single trunk, so one planting hole gives you a sequence of fruit through the season. Each graft needs to be kept in balance with light annual pruning so no single variety takes over.

Nursery shipments reach Salt Bridge Farm in early spring 2027. We email your pickup window as soon as the truck date is confirmed, usually 10–14 days ahead.

All plants are picked up at Salt Bridge Farm in Toms River, New Jersey. There is no shipping to customers for this program.

It depends on the variety. Apples, pears, and Rainier cherry need a compatible second variety nearby. Peaches, Stella and Lapins cherries, plums, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, the NectaPlum, fig, and hardy kiwi are self-fertile or self-fruitful. Every product card lists its pollination requirement exactly as our nursery sources state it.

A self-fertile plant can set fruit using its own pollen, so a single plant will produce a crop without a partner variety nearby.

Approximate mature size is listed on every product card and depends largely on rootstock and pruning.

Occasionally a nursery shorts a variety. We will contact you to offer the closest substitute we can source, a credit toward another plant, or a full refund for that item — your choice.

No. Harvest windows are approximate for the Toms River area and shift by a week or two each year with weather, site, and pruning.