Erik's Gardening Tips

spring/early summer fruit tree care

Now is a good time to dothe following for your fruit trees. You can thin the excess fruit if fruit set is profuse and also tip pinch or prune long shoots of growth. Fertilizer can also be applied to promote vigorous growth.
All fruit trees will benefit from the above tips.
With small fruits like cherries, little thinning to get size and prevent excessively heavy crops are needed, but most other fruits will benefit from having their fruit crop thinned. With larger fruits you can thin to leave 4-8" of space between fruits. By doing this you will get larger size mature fruits, and better shaped ones as well. Thinning reduces the demand of nutrients on the tree so that instead of bearing very heavy one year and then needing to take a bit of a rest the next year(biennial bearing) due to heavy fruit set, your tree will be inclined to produce a great crop again next year(annual bearing).
If you look closely at the young fruits, you will often find them in clusters or very closely spaced on the branch. All you need to do is to take off small or misshapen young fruits and leave the best looking ones to mature. Spacing will get larger size and better quality.
With things like apples and pears, you may need to spray for various things like codling moth, etc.
With citrus, you can thin a bit after they drop off on their own and try to leave the lower branches as much fruit is produced on those low hanging branches rather than higher up in the tree canopy.
Regularly water the trees so that good growth is not checked by lack of water. A well balanced fertilizer can be applied if soil is poor.
As growth of young shoots is occuring now, you can tip pinch those branches once they become 6-8" long if you wish to keep your tree height at a lower level and not need a ladder if you practise this type of backyard orchard culture. With this method, you tip growth at every interval of 6-8" until your desired ultimate height is reached, then keep the tree at that height forever and trim off any growth above that.