When Tom Spellman began lecturing on fruit trees more than two decades ago, his audience skewed primarily older with lots of people in their 60s and 70s. In recent years, that’s started to change.
Spellman, southwestern sales manager for Hickman, California-based Dave Wilson Nursery, said he’s seeing more and more people in their 20s and 30s get into gardening and fruit tree growing. They usually get into it because of some extenuating factor like the economic recession of 2008 or the coronavirus pandemic, but lots of them stick with it, he said.
“All of a sudden they get to taste that first tomato and they get to eat that first peach off that tree and they’re like, ‘Hey, you know what? I can’t buy this; this is not available at the standard grocery store,’” Spellman said.
Growing great fruit takes some careful planning and maintenance by home gardeners and some important steps include picking the right varieties for the area, planting them correctly and making sure that they are properly pruned and cared for throughout the season.
Here are seven tips to follow.
1. Know the details
Conditions such as climate and soil can affect the taste of fruits such as apples, and to a lesser extent stone fruit such as peaches and apricots, said Neil Collins, owner of Paso Robles-based heirloom tree nursery Trees of Antiquity.
You could have the same variety of apple grow in both upstate New York and Southern California and it’s entirely possible the Southern California-grown apple would taste different from its eastern counterpart, Collins said.
That’s why he recommends talking to experts, such as a local nursery person, to find out what fruit from a particular variety might taste like when grown in your area.
“It really just comes down to communicating with people who have experience growing the different varieties in the different regions,” he said.
2. Keep it cool
Deciduous fruit trees such as apples, pears and stone fruit require a certain number of hours between 32 and 45 degrees each winter in order to avoid problems in the spring such as delayed blooming, reduced fruit production and a decline in fruit quality.
How many cold hours are required depends on the variety. There are apples that need 1,000 chill hours or more and others that require as low as 300. Fruit trees with a lower chill hour requirement are usually a better bet for this part of the world.
One of the easier ways to determine if a fruit tree will get the right amount of cold is to see what USDA Hardiness Zones are listed for it, Collins said. Often this might be on the label for the tree or in a description on the nursery website. Much of Southern California is in Zones 9 and 10.
3. Pay attention to location
Collins said that most fruit trees require at least six hours of sun per day. Apples benefit from being put somewhere where they can get partial shade during the warmest part of the day.
Fruit trees that are trained up against a wall or fence should be placed east or north in hotter climates and west or south in cooler climates.
Fall and winter are usually prime time for planting because the weather is more mild and more forgiving for new trees. This is an especially good time for apples, pears and stone fruit, Spellman said.
4. Don’t plant your trees like vegetables
A common mistake that a lot of people make is digging a huge hole to put their fruit tree in, Collins said. He said that the hole should only be slightly larger than the root system of the tree.
Gardeners may be tempted to amend the hole with a rich, nutrient filled soil that will help the tree grow, but shouldn’t because their root systems will stay confined to that richer soil.
Instead of amending the soil in the hole, Collins recommends adding fertilizer such as fish meal or chicken manure to the surface of the soil and watering it in before spring starts.
When the tree is planted, its graft line should be 2-3 inches above the soil surface. The graft line looks like a knot at the base of the tree’s trunk and is the point where the specific variety of tree ends and its rootstock begins.
Once trees have leafed out in the spring they will need 15 gallons of water every one to two weeks, and sometimes more in warmer climates, Collins said.
Fruit trees can be planted in containers, but the kind of container matters. He recommends avoiding a those with porous walls, instead using something like a walled tub or a whiskey barrel with a soil mix that’s equal parts compost, perlite and peat moss.
Trees in planters tend to dry out more quickly than their in-ground counterparts and need to be checked more often. During the summer, Collins said, the container trees should be checked on every day and the soil they are in should feel moist 2 to 4 inches below its surface.
“I just stress with our customers who do plant our trees in containers to understand that they really need to have a good watering program through the summer months to ensure that these trees will grow up successfully and to the level that you want them to,” he said.
5. Break out a paint brush (seriously)
Collins said that painting the trunk of your newly-planted fruit tree can help protect it from sunburn and also help discourage damaging insects like borers. He said he uses an interior white latex paint diluted 50% with water and paints the tree trunk from just below the soil line to the first set of prominent branches.
If your tree is a “whip,” or a really skinny, immature tree with no branches, you should paint the entire thing, Collins said.
6. Prepare to prune
Even before a fruit tree goes in the ground, it’s going to need to be cut back a little bit to balance for the roots it lost when it was pulled out of the ground at the nursery.
Trees that have a trunk that’s a half-inch in diameter will need to be cut back to be 3 feet above the ground while those with one .75 of an inch in diameter can be cut back to 5 feet above the ground.
Two times that are good for pruning a fruit tree are winter and summer. Pruning in the winter will stimulate more growth and pruning in the summer (Collins usually does this in July) will help keep the plants manageable.
7. Get the most out of your growing season
Some fruit trees, including varieties of apple, are not self-fertile and may require another tree for pollination. Your local nursery representative may be able to tell you which ones need this.
Spellman said that planting multiple fruit trees can also help a gardener get more out of the season.
For example, he said gardeners can have one large peach tree in a singular 400-square-foot area or they could have several smaller peach trees that occupy that space if they keep them trimmed and maintained.
If gardeners pick out varieties of peaches that ripen at different times they can have a steady supply of peaches instead of a glut of them all at once.
“You’re getting a reduced crop, but you’re getting good quality, home-grown peaches and over an extended period of time,” he said.
More on growing fruit trees
These websites have more tips and tricks for fruit tree care.
https://homeorchard.ucanr.edu/
https://www.davewilson.com/home-garden/getting-started/introduction-home-fruit-growing/
https://www.treesofantiquity.com/
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