Growing fruit trees is incredibly rewarding. There is nothing like plucking sweet, organic apples, pears, cherries, or apricots right off the tree. Sadly, fruit trees also have a down side because they experience pest and disease problems, poor production, and nutrient deficiencies. And growing apple trees is notoriously difficult.
When growing apple trees, there are so many potential problems to contend with. Homegrown apples can be wormy, bitter and unappealing. And apple trees are a sensitive bunch, often falling victim to pests and diseases.
We North Americans donโt seem to worry too much about that. Each year we flock to garden centres to buy apple trees, most of us blissfully unaware of the potential problems that we will face in the decades to come. But it doesnโt have to be that way. With a little education, growing apple trees can be easy.
In this article, Iโm going to teach you how to grow apple trees the easy way. But first, we need to know what itโs like to grow apple trees the hard way.
Growing apple trees โthe hard wayโ is a three-step process.
So, whatโs wrong with this approach? Letโs see where the problems lie.
Now, letโs see what the easy way looks like.
The easy way to grow apple trees involves a bit more learning and research up front. But that little bit of work early on means that you will be prepared for your apple tree growing journey.
Hereโs a metaphor for you:
Letโs say you want to run a marathon. Youโll probably prepare for it by training regularly for a while. Youโll spend some time building up your endurance. Youโll invest in really good running shoes. You may even take a class to perfect your running technique.
If you do all that, the marathon itself will be much easier. Heck, it might even be fun! The same goes for growing apple trees the easy way. Here are the three steps:
I'll dig into each of these steps below....
When I first tasted Honeycrisp apples, I fell in love. They were the best apples ever! They are so large, crispy, and sweet. Honeycrisp is a heavenly apple variety. But Honeycrisp trees are the devil to grow in your backyard.
Thatโs partly because Honeycrisp apple trees are vulnerable to bitter pit. This disorder can make the apple flesh spotty, spongy and bitter tasting. Bitter pit is a problem that even professional orchardists have trouble dealing with.
Sadly, Honeycrisp is not alone as a โproblem childโ amongst apple trees. Other popular varieties are vulnerable to diseases including fireblight, apple scab, and powdery mildew. These diseases make it much harder to keep your tree healthy and productive.
Commercial orchardists use harsh and often toxic chemical sprays to protect their trees from these diseases. So, whatโs an organic or home grower to do?
Avoiding common apple tree diseases is easy if you buy apple trees that are โdisease resistant.โ With a disease resistant tree, you can rest easy. When fruit tree diseases start circulating in your community (as they inevitably will), your tree will be much less likely to become infected.
There arenโt a lot of common supermarket apple varieties that are disease resistant. But there are lots of other apple varieties that are. And you may have never heard of them before. Here are just a few of the disease resistant apple trees that I have planted over the years:
These are just a few of the disease resistant apple tree options. Youโll find these apple varieties and many more in your local specialist fruit tree nursery.
Letโs say you decide to purchase and plant a Pristine apple tree. You are excited about growing those sweet and juicy apples and dream about the great pies youโre going to bake!
You have discovered that Pristine is resistant to apple scab, an apple tree disease that is common in your community. What else do you need to know?
All of this information and more will be available in your fruit tree nursery catalogue. And thereโs lots more to consider when researching your apple tree. In my online course Certificate in Fruit Tree Care, Iโll take you through it step-by-step in the 2-hour-long module on choosing your fruit tree.
One thing to keep in mind: specialist apple trees sell out quickly. Once youโve carefully chosen your tree, youโll need to order it up to 6 months in advance from your fruit tree nursery. The nursery will ship your bare root apple tree to you in the early spring or late fall. Plant it properly, water it well, and you and your apple tree will have a wonderful start.
I know a couple, Wendy and Jack, who were really excited about having their first child. They made it through the pregnancy and Wendy gave birth to a healthy little girl. They were overjoyed when they brought the baby home. Then they sat down at the kitchen table, and it dawned on them that they had no idea what they had gotten themselves into.
โOh my gosh. What do we do now?โ Wendy said.
Babies are communicative. Your baby will cry and squirm to tell you it has needs. In contrast, young apple trees suffer in silence. You may not realize that thereโs a problem for years โ and at that point, it may already be too late.
New growers often have questions about caring for their young trees. The answers arenโt always straightforward - letโs explore them below.
The answer to this question? It depends.
Young apple trees need lots of water. They need to be watered frequently and deeply. In our orchard park, we water our newly planted trees up to three times a week, with three large buckets of water each time. Thatโs about 15 gallons of water. We have clay soil, which retains water. If you have sandy soil, you may need to water even more frequently.
Three or four months after planting apple trees, you can start to water a bit less โ maybe once a week or so. At this point, the trees have settled in and become a little bit more independent.
Older, well-established apple trees are much more independent. They have huge root systems that take in lots of water and nutrients from the soil. Youโll need to water older trees only during a drought or when the weather is really hot and dry.
Reading the paragraphs above may make you feel frustrated. Iโm sure youโd like me to tell you precisely how much water your trees need in your unique environment. I canโt fly all over the world to work with you on that - but here are two steps that will help you get your apple tree irrigation timing and technique right.
Like humans, apple trees need food. Think about it: your apple tree gets its nutrients from the soil and uses those nutrients to expand its root system, grow leaves, blossoms and branches, and to produce nutrient-rich fruit for us.
If you donโt feed your tree, it wonโt have the energy to do any of those jobs very well. So, if your apple tree produces unappealing apples โ or no apples at all - that may be because the poor thing is starving.
While itโs common for new growers to not feed their tree enough, the other problem happens when they buy the best apple tree fertilizer they can find in their local garden centre.
These ready-to-go fertilizers or nutrients spikes can actually irreversibly damage your tree โ and your soil โ if they are not customized to your unique soil needs.
Thatโs why I always advise new growers to keep it simple. The best apple tree fertilizer is nutrient rich mulch. You spread it on the soil over the roots of your apple tree once a year, in the early spring. It will provide food for your tree, and you wonโt risk the damage linked with overfertilizing.
As you become more experienced, you can learn how to feed your apple tree based on its actual, specific needs. You can determine which nutrients it needs by observing new growth, leaf conditions, and general tree health and fruit production. When you are ready to learn more, you can take my course.
So, for a beginner, the best apple tree fertilizer is nutrient rich mulch applied in the spring. Hereโs how you do it.
Other apple tree fertilizers options include leaf mulch, bio-fertilizers, and dehydrated chicken manure.
If youโre growing your fruit trees organically, you probably do not want to use a lot of sprays to protect your fruit trees from pests and disease. Thatโs why pruning is an important tool for organic growers, used to keep their trees healthy and disease-free. Here are some reasons to prune your trees:
Once youโve planted and pruned your young tree, youโll need to continue pruning and shaping the tree over the years. Iโll teach you about that in my online course, in the two hour-long workshop on winter and summer fruit tree pruning.
Finally, the best way to keep your apple tree healthy and productive is to know which fruit tree pest and disease problems it will be vulnerable to over its lifetime.
Thatโs because itโs easier to prevent apple tree pest and disease problems if you tackle them early on. Once these problems have spread, fruit tree pest and disease problems are really hard to cure.
Take some time to learn about some of the common diseases. I go through them in more detail in my Certificate in Fruit Tree Care course, but here are a few common apple tree problems:
The amazing thing? Once you know what to look for, fighting off apple tree diseases organically can be relatively easy. Some diseases can effectively be removed with pruning. Others can be prevented using organic anti-fungal sprays. And some pest problems can be defeated with a once a year spray, using an appropriate dormant oil.
If you have a weekend or two, you can learn everything you need to know about growing apple trees. Do your research now and youโll be able to grow apple trees the easy way.
Itโs so much more fun to grow fruit trees with confidence, knowing that you have all the bases covered. Youโve bought and planted the right tree. You know how to care for it properly. And you know the potential problems early on, and are equipped with a strategy for dealing with them.
Alternatively, you can grow your apple trees the hard way and run out to the garden centre today, buy a potted tree, plant it, and hope for the best.
Iโve done both myself. And for me? Iโll opt for the easy way.
Happy growing everyone!
Susan Poizner is an urban orchardist in Toronto, Canada and the author of three books on fruit tree care including Grow Fruit Trees Fast, Growing Urban Orchards, and Fruit Tree Grafting for Everyone. Susan trains new growers worldwide through her award-winning fruit tree care training program at Orchardpeople.com. Susan is also the host of the Orchard People radio show and podcast and is an ISA Certified Arborist.