Winter is the time to plant crab apple trees for deer, as well as other trees like persimmon and pear. Deer love fruit and if you have trees where you hunt they will attract deer. You may be like me and call that harvesting rather than hunting, since you are putting something out to attract the deer to you rather than going and hunting them, but that is open to your opinion.

I ordered my crab apple seedlings from the Georgia Forestry Service. They sell a variety of trees at very good prices. Ten crab apple seedlings were $30, much cheaper than I could have gotten them anywhere else. They start taking orders in June for delivery to your nearest Forestry Service office in December or January, the time to plant them. i wanted to order some persimmon trees, but they were sold out by the time I tried to order.

Since my soil is poor I bought some bags of topsoil at Lowes and a bag of 10-10-10 fertilizer. I also took some wire I had and made tubes to protect the saplings from deer and other animals. To plant, I dug a hole a little deeper than the seedlings had been growing and much bigger than the root spread with post hole diggers. I put the sapling in and added topsoil, compacting it as I added it. When the hole was full I poured water on it to settle it good and sprinkled a cup of fertilizer around it about a foot out. After staking the cages down securely I flagged them with surveyors tape.

I also fertilized some wild persimmon trees in my field and a white oak tree as well as some saw tooth oaks I planted a few years ago. I have been watching about a dozen persimmon trees that came up in my field, hoping to see some fruit so I would know they are female trees. I finally saw some persimmons on this group of trees this year so I fertilized them.

I hope to harvest venison around these trees in three or four years.