Fruit trees

[a pilgrim]

Has anyone here had any success with fruit trees. I'm in Middle Tennessee. We are trying several. We have a few dif. types of apples, pears, peaches, and figs. We are also in year two of grapes and blueberries.

How has your experience been?

What have you learned?

What would you do dif. this time?

Thanks,
Ben

 

[Delilah01]

I have a few plum trees and apple trees which I planted last fall. The plums are already flowering and the apple trees look like maybe they will flower in another year or so. Had I known they would have grown so quickly I would have boughten more fruit trees when I did. The trees at the nursery are now twice the price they were last fall. I really like the plums trees because they flower early, providing my honey bees with pollen before all the other plants bloom.

 

[a pilgrim]

I have local wild plums on my property. They're good if you can get to them before the birds! :/

 

[gideon123]

we were lucky to inherit a fantastic plum tree at my current house.
It provides a lot of plums.
last year we started making our own plum jam and bottling it.
it's quite easy - and a lot of fun!

I planted a nectarine, lemon and orange tree last year.
They are generally doing pretty well.
The orange tree struggled for a while - but eventually I figured out that it was just not getting enough water. It's looking better now.

I've got an avocado that's doing pretty well - but tends to get a bit over-watered. So I need to keep an eye on that.
They're all doing well.
Fruit trees are very rewarding

Gideon123

 

[keith99]

Decades ago at my parents I had a lot of success with Fruit trees.

Now I'm having problems. Or perhaps I should say rodent problems. They do not just eat the fruit, they strip the leaves off the trees.

I have 3 cherry trees that were doing very well, hoped to have my first decent crop this year. Now almost no fruit and major (though recoverable) damage. My lemon was stripped so much it is now in a huge cage.

I got 10 bench graft apples. These look like a stick with roots and I knew with my rodent problem they would all fail unless caged. They are now just strating to leaf out and I expect them to grow well. But they are all in covered cages.

I have 2 undamaged trees. A Dorset Golden apple and a spicezee nectaplum, which happens to be read leaved. I may add other read leaved trees next year.

It is worth considering Plouts and othe rinter species crosses. They have a very good reputation. However it seems they need to fully ripen, which means what yuo will get at most stores is garbage.

 

[gideon123]

Something to try for you.
Get some plastic dishes or cones.Cut a hole in the base - same diameter as the trunk of your tree. Make a cut down one side. The cut allows you to open up the cone so you can get the sides around the trre trunk.

Place the plastic cone upside down on the trunk of the tree (inverted). So the narrow base is pointing upwards, and the wide part is downwards. Use duct tape to re-join the sides of the cone back together (you need to separate them to get the cone on the tree). The fix the cone to the trunk - make a strong joint.

Now when rodents climb the trunk, they find themselves stuck inside the plastic cone. It is impossible to get around it - because once they are inside it when they climb up - if they reach out, the sides slope downwards and are slippery. So they fall off.

Problem solved.
Well ... try it anyway.

Gideon123

 

[amandadun]

How many plums will a small plum tree produce?

 

[a pilgrim]

How many plums will a small plum tree produce?

A bunch, if you can get the pests to leave them alone.

 

[keith99]

Something to try for you.
Get some plastic dishes or cones.Cut a hole in the base - same diameter as the trunk of your tree. Make a cut down one side. The cut allows you to open up the cone so you can get the sides around the trre trunk.

Place the plastic cone upside down on the trunk of the tree (inverted). So the narrow base is pointing upwards, and the wide part is downwards. Use duct tape to re-join the sides of the cone back together (you need to separate them to get the cone on the tree). The fix the cone to the trunk - make a strong joint.

Now when rodents climb the trunk, they find themselves stuck inside the plastic cone. It is impossible to get around it - because once they are inside it when they climb up - if they reach out, the sides slope downwards and are slippery. So they fall off.

Problem solved.
Well ... try it anyway.

Gideon123

That might work, if the trees were larger and the problem did mnot include rabbits.

I have to provide protection for the trunk against rabbits and after that there is no space left to teh cone idea. The trunks are all under 2 inches also.

But I'll keep this in mind for a few years from now.

 

[Humble Pie]

I'm not from America but I think we'd experience similar challenges. Two of the main issues I've found with having fruit trees is size (most grow pretty big or really big) and that they attract flocks of parrots during the day and colonies of bats at night. The loquats and pomegrantes get eaten and so did the mangos where I used to live. It doesn't bother me because I've never really harvested from the trees but some people don't like their fruit being eaten by animals. Another problem with fruit trees is you'll have a glut of fruit then no fruit. Where I live the council rejected some residents rubbish bins on collection day because their wheelie bins were heavily weighed down with mangos.
Also, not a fruit tree but a borer drills its way into the macadamia nuts.

 

[paul1149]

Pilgrim, that is a good idea. I have a couple of baby apple trees here, and a herd of deer snooping around, so I need to take measures. I already use netting, and the plate idea sounds good.

Years ago my uncle had a stand of full size apple trees. My cousin used to drive me around in the hydraulic bucket of a tractor, picking them. Great memories. But now dwarf trees make that unnecessary.

 

[keith99]

I'm not from America but I think we'd experience similar challenges. Two of the main issues I've found with having fruit trees is size (most grow pretty big or really big) and that they attract flocks of parrots during the day and colonies of bats at night. The loquats and pomegrantes get eaten and so did the mangos where I used to live. It doesn't bother me because I've never really harvested from the trees but some people don't like their fruit being eaten by animals. Another problem with fruit trees is you'll have a glut of fruit then no fruit. Where I live the council rejected some residents rubbish bins on collection day because their wheelie bins were heavily weighed down with mangos.
Also, not a fruit tree but a borer drills its way into the macadamia nuts.

Bolding mine.

That illustartes one of the huge problems for the home gardener. 99% of everythign is geared to or based on commercial production. Sometimes both want the same, but often not.

When it comes to fruit ripening the home gardener wants the opposite of what a commercial grower wants. We want a long season with fruit the whole time, they want everything to ripen at once.

That commercial concerns differ from home concerns is why I have high hopes for my apple trees. It seems most apple trees actually DO NOT require many or perhaps any chill hours to fruit. BUT if they do not get enough chill hours they bloom aver a much longer timeframe. Bad for commercial growing and also bad in the "South". Bad for commercial growing because the fruit does not ripen at the same time and bad becaseu if it is humid (which most of the south is) there are diseases that get in through the blooms, making disease control a real problem.

But Southern California and Arazona are anything but humid. Between different ripening times, this extension and that many apples keep well (in fact one of the ones I have seems to not be all that good when picked, it needs to age a montth or more before becoming really good) I expect to have a 9 month or longer apple season.

So DO NOT limit yuorself to commercial varieties when selecting a fruit tree. There is a good chance a lot of what makes it a good commercial fruit is actually something that is bad for the home gardener. Ripening all at once an shippability, which usually means a tough skin.

EDIT: Another way where things being geared to commercial production is trying to figure out what yuo need as a pollinator for apples. Many apple trees are somewhat self fruitful. But how much? Sometimes one site says a variety requires a pollinator and another says it does not or is partially self fruitful. Some sites say a variety needs a pollinator if the yeild is increased 10-20% with a pollinator. Others seem to consider setting any fruit, even misformed and small amounts being partially self fruitfull.

The disticntions do not matter commercially, you need maximum yeilds, they make a huge difference to the hone gardener.

 

[John3verse20]

Not sure how cold it gets where you are. Figs will do better if protected from the cold (piles of leaves, burlap around the trunk, planted next to the south side of the house.
Apples actually need cold winters to do well.
I've done well with dwarf fruit trees, easier to harvest.