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Fruit trees
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Author:  NKMAC [ Tue May 15, 2007 8:15 am ]
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My parents have an apple tree that they planted years ago. There is only one and it bears (good) fruit every other year. I don't know when you should plant the tree though.

You can also reasonably grow pears, plums and cherries.
Author:  gcpeart [ Tue May 15, 2007 8:45 am ]
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Since most fruit trees are actually done with grafts, there are a few trees you can get that are grafted from 5 different fruit trees. So you can get an apple tree that makes 5 different types of apples, or like wise pears. I think Terra carries them, although I haven't seen them yet.

My experiences with them (fruit trees in general) is they aren't super long lived. We had a peach tree that lived about 6-10 years, but the last couple years the fruit yields just crashed. Also cherry trees feel like an exercise in futility, we have had more problems with birds and bugs then with anything else we've tried growing.

Finally, grapes, grapes are great, if you will excuse the alliteration. We've made our own wine and jelly from ours.

As for planting, right now is good, or late fall. Make sure you dig deeps, and give them plenty of good soil (the clay we have is real garbage.)

Lots of water, especially in the first year, and a tree fertilizer spike for a fruit tree can't hurt either. Clearly farmers and orchards can't afford to go to these measures, but if you want a high yield off your tiny orchard then its reasonable.

I'm not a super expert on all of these, but I've had some experience. This year we've committed to a mass vegi garden, as home grown in Ontario is just not close enough, we need home grown in the back yard.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.
Author:  NKMAC [ Tue May 15, 2007 8:54 pm ]
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gcpeart wrote:
My experiences with them (fruit trees in general) is they aren't super long lived. We had a peach tree that lived about 6-10 years, but the last couple years the fruit yields just crashed.


Weird, my parents tree was planted when they bought their house in 1976.
Author:  gcpeart [ Wed May 16, 2007 7:22 am ]
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NKMAC wrote:
gcpeart wrote:
My experiences with them (fruit trees in general) is they aren't super long lived. We had a peach tree that lived about 6-10 years, but the last couple years the fruit yields just crashed.


Weird, my parents tree was planted when they bought their house in 1976.


Hmmm, not sure. Like I said I'm not a farmer, so I could be wrong, or perhaps our tree just caught some sort of fungus, or pest.
Author:  gcpeart [ Wed May 16, 2007 7:53 am ]
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happy wrote:
Thanks so much everyone. Sounds really interesting. We've now considered planting either apples or a pears. Actually, we had a pear tree where we used to live but it never ever flowered or bore fruits and it somehow is getting us concerned about buying our tree now.
We went to Terra last night but it started raining so we were not able to really check out all their trees. We saw some grafted pears though-4 different varieties in 1 tree. Does that mean that it would yield 4 varieties of pears? That would be great if ever! It's getting us excited. Perhaps we'll check out the other growers over the weekend, get our tree(s) and look forward to next year's harvest. :D


Yup you get 4 different types :)

I think fruit trees are particularly sensitive to soil nutrients because it requires so much to make the fruits they bare (again just spit balling here.) A nice layer of fresh compost mixed in around the base, or a fertalizer spike, or perhaps using a root irrigation tool to fertilize will definitely help. I know last weekend most of the Apple tree's at Terra already had their flowers.
Author:  eci [ Wed May 16, 2007 1:47 pm ]
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Very good point - we have an apple tree the previous owners of our house planted, but it only gets a couple of apples on it because the nearest 2nd tree is so far that very few bugs hit one and then the other to cross-pollinate properly. Definitely check whether the tree you are buying will need a partner to pollinate!
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