So we have a few fruit trees in the back yard. They are amazing.
The best part is getting free food. And the only work is...well actually I shouldn't say the only work, but there's not a lot of work except for processing the fruit at end of season and a small amount of pruning.
To give you some background, we'd been at this house so long that we'd seen that the fruit trees don't need a lot of pruning when they are mature, in order to keep producing fruit. For many years we never even bothered to prune them and we'd mostly get fruit every year.
We did learn a few things;
Like if you have a really heavy fruit crop then the next year the tree can be weaker and won't produce as much, and in some cases won't produce at all. (This has been rare.)
Supposedly pruning helps with this, to help the tree recover and can help the tree jump start regenerating and to not miss fruit. At least that's what people say.
My question is does it matter if the pruning is spread throughout all areas of tree to be effective for all parts of the tree? For example, if you only pruned on one side of the tree in a small section, would that mean only that side of the tree benefits from pruning? (I wish I'd thought about this before. Now that 'having plenty' isn't guaranteed, I'm starting to ask more questions, and wish I'd asked them sooner.) (This is also my primary question.) And what do you think about this?
We have noticed that if your tree doesn't produce one year, it will produce again the next year,
Here are a few other observations we've noticed.
Everyone wants cherry trees in their yards and when they get excited about fruit trees they generally decide immediately (often from the wrong family members opinions) that they must have cherry trees and nothing else. But did you know cherry trees are often the least effective as a fruit tree? When you research which fruit trees are most consistent and reliable cherry trees are at the bottom of the least. They are the most prone to early frost troubles, because many varieties bud earlier in the year to produce fruit earlier in the year than other fruit trees. This means if you actually wanted to count on them, you would be prone to frequent years of interruption and no crop.
Plum trees, and apricot trees are the most reliable for most US climates. They are more reliable for steady yields and crops. Also other types of trees that bear fruit closer to the fall or end of summer tend to be closer to being reliable also. And in general the closer a tree produces fruit to the spring the more it can be easy to have problem chances.
You can also after this look up productivity and consistency ratings on fruit trees on the internet. There are lists of them with rankings. I had forgotten the list and didn't memorize it or I would have posted it year. My notes on this are to help people have food on the table also while sharing my questions. Plus, I did not put taste preference over my logic over what could and should feed a family. (This is the trap most people will fall into.)
Also in our yard we have several plum trees and we've had 2 cherry trees, a peach tree, and a pear tree. The plum trees ALWAYS produce. I can't underestimate this type of tree as a producer. They are amazing. But our cherry trees fail having a crop more than 50% of the time! And one of them died. Our peach tree died but that was due to an animal stripping off the bark. Our pear tree died due to mice eating its roots and damaging it enough that it never got over it. We've seen that the plum trees will always be more consistent over cherry trees and others.
Another trap people fall into is they think, well if cherry trees or others are more prone to crop failures, then I can make up for it by just having more trees. This can be a trap because if one tree had a failure from frost then chances are the others in the same area would also...such that this idea of deciding you are 'smart' on your own and beating it isn't really being smart.
I also wanted to ask the others if they had some ideas of some hardy fruit tree types they like?
Thanks and hope this helps somebody and not just me.
The best part is getting free food. And the only work is...well actually I shouldn't say the only work, but there's not a lot of work except for processing the fruit at end of season and a small amount of pruning.
To give you some background, we'd been at this house so long that we'd seen that the fruit trees don't need a lot of pruning when they are mature, in order to keep producing fruit. For many years we never even bothered to prune them and we'd mostly get fruit every year.
We did learn a few things;
Like if you have a really heavy fruit crop then the next year the tree can be weaker and won't produce as much, and in some cases won't produce at all. (This has been rare.)
Supposedly pruning helps with this, to help the tree recover and can help the tree jump start regenerating and to not miss fruit. At least that's what people say.
My question is does it matter if the pruning is spread throughout all areas of tree to be effective for all parts of the tree? For example, if you only pruned on one side of the tree in a small section, would that mean only that side of the tree benefits from pruning? (I wish I'd thought about this before. Now that 'having plenty' isn't guaranteed, I'm starting to ask more questions, and wish I'd asked them sooner.) (This is also my primary question.) And what do you think about this?
We have noticed that if your tree doesn't produce one year, it will produce again the next year,
Here are a few other observations we've noticed.
Everyone wants cherry trees in their yards and when they get excited about fruit trees they generally decide immediately (often from the wrong family members opinions) that they must have cherry trees and nothing else. But did you know cherry trees are often the least effective as a fruit tree? When you research which fruit trees are most consistent and reliable cherry trees are at the bottom of the least. They are the most prone to early frost troubles, because many varieties bud earlier in the year to produce fruit earlier in the year than other fruit trees. This means if you actually wanted to count on them, you would be prone to frequent years of interruption and no crop.
Plum trees, and apricot trees are the most reliable for most US climates. They are more reliable for steady yields and crops. Also other types of trees that bear fruit closer to the fall or end of summer tend to be closer to being reliable also. And in general the closer a tree produces fruit to the spring the more it can be easy to have problem chances.
You can also after this look up productivity and consistency ratings on fruit trees on the internet. There are lists of them with rankings. I had forgotten the list and didn't memorize it or I would have posted it year. My notes on this are to help people have food on the table also while sharing my questions. Plus, I did not put taste preference over my logic over what could and should feed a family. (This is the trap most people will fall into.)
Also in our yard we have several plum trees and we've had 2 cherry trees, a peach tree, and a pear tree. The plum trees ALWAYS produce. I can't underestimate this type of tree as a producer. They are amazing. But our cherry trees fail having a crop more than 50% of the time! And one of them died. Our peach tree died but that was due to an animal stripping off the bark. Our pear tree died due to mice eating its roots and damaging it enough that it never got over it. We've seen that the plum trees will always be more consistent over cherry trees and others.
Another trap people fall into is they think, well if cherry trees or others are more prone to crop failures, then I can make up for it by just having more trees. This can be a trap because if one tree had a failure from frost then chances are the others in the same area would also...such that this idea of deciding you are 'smart' on your own and beating it isn't really being smart.
I also wanted to ask the others if they had some ideas of some hardy fruit tree types they like?
Thanks and hope this helps somebody and not just me.
