Fruit trees

Frosty Nuggets · Oct 20, 2019

I thought I would start a thread where people can post about their fruit trees.

I have 2x Red Love apple trees in pots, 1x Peach (freestone) in a pot, 1x finger lime in a pot and 1x orange in a pot, they are all in 50 liter pots.

The Red Love apple trees have just come out of dormancy and have new leaves, it has just finished flowering, should I give it growth or bloom nutes and what ph should they be?
The Red Love apple has red flesh and doesn't go brown when cut or mashed.

The peach has also just come out of dormancy with new leaves and has just finished flowering, should I give it growth or bloom nutes and what ph should they be?

TychoMonolyth · Oct 20, 2019

I never grew fruit trees in a pot before. I've seen fruit tree fertilizer steakes next to the normal ones. I think it's Jobes brand.

There was a good post by Gypsy about the soil under an apple tree about the apples composting and feeding it once every fall. (I'm collecting some next spring for my yard weed). After that, it dormancy, followed by watering and fruiting without anything extra. Pruning is probably the most important thing.

Don't confuse a flower with a tree. I doubt very much if anything other than living soil would help. It might actually hurt.

GOT_BUD? · Oct 20, 2019

TychoMonolyth said:
Don't confuse a flower with a tree. I doubt very much if anything other than living soil would help. It might actually hurt.

KNF inputs. See Chris Trump's macadamia nut farm for a prime example of the right way to do it.

When I bought this house, I put in what I thought was a dwarf bartlett pear tree. Well, turns out it wasn't a dwarf, but a full size tree. I've had to keep her trimmed way back and turn it more or less into a bush on a stick.

Last year I put in a peach tree bare root and a dwarf cherry tree that I bought from the same place. The peach tree was a bare stick with some roots growing out the bottom. Not a single leaf. It never did anything so I finally got pissed and yanked it out of the ground. It hadn't grown any new roots.

My cherry tree almost died because they cut back 2/3 of the root mass before shipping, and it had way too much foliage. That one I was able to save. But it took all summer to finally recover.

From now on, no more mail order fruit trees.

TychoMonolyth · Oct 20, 2019

I put in a peach tree. I'm zone 5. Peaches are zone 4. It lived for 3 years. Year 2 gave me 24 beautiful Peaches but the raccoons pulled them down before I could and took a bite out of every single one. Cocksuckers.

GOT_BUD? · Oct 20, 2019

TychoMonolyth said:
I put in a peach tree. I'm zone 5. Peaches are zone 4. It lived for 3 years. Year 2 gave me 24 beautiful Peaches but the raccoons pulled them down before I could and took a bite out of every single one. Cocksuckers.

That sucks.

I'm ok with losing some peaches. And I've lost more than a few tomatoes over the years as well. But don't fuck with my cherries or it's clobbering time!

St. Phatty · Oct 20, 2019

Frosty Nuggets said:
I thought I would start a thread where people can post about their fruit trees.

I have 2x Red Love apple trees in pots, 1x Peach (freestone) in a pot, 1x finger lime in a pot and 1x orange in a pot, they are all in 50 liter pots.

The Red Love apple trees have just come out of dormancy and have new leaves, it has just finished flowering, should I give it growth or bloom nutes and what ph should they be?
The Red Love apple has red flesh and doesn't go brown when cut or mashed.

The peach has also just come out of dormancy with new leaves and has just finished flowering, should I give it growth or bloom nutes and what ph should they be?

Are you dead set on giving them hydro nutes ?

Why not just organic NPK kinds of nutes ? e.g. chicken manure, which is 2-2-2 or 2-4-3, mixed into water.

I planted about 30 fruit trees the last few years. Now that it's started raining, I don't have to worry about watering them - and I can concentrate on feeding them.

They get 2 sources of N & K, and one source of P.

If they were fruiting I'd give them more Phosphorus, but I can wait 6 months.

They had a hard go because they were stripped of leaves about once a week by the local deer.

I finally caught up with that. Last to get a proper deer fence was a Moorpark Apricot and a Tomcot.

I did do something right - Moorpark & Tomcot can pollinate each other.

If you want to get fruit from your plants, you have to start thinking about pollen sources.

Apples are the most complicated.

UNLESS you have a crab-apple.

Personally I'm looking for a really thorny plant to put underneath my mountain lion resistant chicken coop. Wild Plum has really thorny stalks.

What other plants have REALLY thorny stalks ?

TychoMonolyth · Oct 20, 2019

Never plant a tree in the ground when the month has an R in it.

zif · Oct 20, 2019

But late fall / early winter is a great time to plant and transplant dormant trees!

TychoMonolyth said:
Never plant a tree in the ground when the month has an R in it.

TychoMonolyth · Oct 20, 2019

zif said:
But late fall / early winter is a great time to plant and transplant dormant trees!

Yup.
ApRil (too early)
May, June, July, August (good)
SeptembeR (too late)
The other months have an R in them.

There are exceptions though. I pulled up an Oak from my forest in September/October because you have to wait for the leaves to fall and the tree to be completely dormant or it just won't make it.

My rule came from old time farmers in my area so it may be different down south.

zif · Oct 20, 2019

I’ve had good luck up ‘til the ground is too solid to dig. 45N here.

‘Course some people throw the rules out the window. Sepp Holzer claims he successfully transplants in the summer R months by totally stripping the trees of leaves. I’ve wondered what strike rate you’d get doing that in quantity....

Frosty Nuggets · Oct 21, 2019

St. Phatty said:
Are you dead set on giving them hydro nutes ?

Why not just organic NPK kinds of nutes ? e.g. chicken manure, which is 2-2-2 or 2-4-3, mixed into water.

I planted about 30 fruit trees the last few years. Now that it's started raining, I don't have to worry about watering them - and I can concentrate on feeding them.

They get 2 sources of N & K, and one source of P.

If they were fruiting I'd give them more Phosphorus, but I can wait 6 months.

.....

Personally I'm looking for a really thorny plant to put underneath my mountain lion resistant chicken coop. Wild Plum has really thorny stalks.

What other plants have REALLY thorny stalks ?

I have a heap of hydro nutes and no organic, I don't want to have to buy more stuff.

Mandarins and finger limes have thorns.

rod58 · Oct 21, 2019

hey frosty , i'd just go with a handful of blood and bone ..pretty well all you need for fruit trees in that .

Frosty Nuggets · Oct 21, 2019

Thanks rod58, I was hoping to avoid another trip to Bunnings.

St. Phatty · Oct 21, 2019

Frosty Nuggets said:
The peach has also just come out of dormancy with new leaves and has just finished flowering, should I give it growth or bloom nutes and what ph should they be?

I would give it the growth nutes, priority on Nitrogen and Potassium.

You also have some very useful nitrogen nutes being produced every day - organic nitrogen - but that relates to a lifestyle choice that some find distasteful.

GOT_BUD? · Oct 21, 2019

St. Phatty said:
I would give it the growth nutes, priority on Nitrogen and Potassium.

You also have some very useful nitrogen nutes being produced every day - organic nitrogen - but that relates to a lifestyle choice that some find distasteful.

The guy who started me on the path of growing my own swore up and down it was the absolute best source of nitrogen you could find for a quick application.

He wasn't wrong.

St. Phatty · Oct 22, 2019

GOT_BUD? said:
The guy who started me on the path of growing my own swore up and down it was the absolute best source of nitrogen you could find for a quick application.

He wasn't wrong.

Which "it" are you talking about ?

I used to pee on the rose bush next to the back door.

Soon it was like a tree, dwarfing all the other rose bushes.

I'm actually now focussed on planting shade trees, and I'm realizing that one rose bush that got all the urine, is actually big enough to provide shade.

But I can only produce so much.

Frosty Nuggets · Oct 24, 2019

Well I gave them a dose of Great White, Cyco Zyme, molasses and Seasol (seaweed solution), next time I go to Bunnings I will get some Dynamic Lifter.

Rico Swazi · Nov 8, 2019

A thick layer of mulch will do wonders for your fruit trees helping the biology process the added nutrients. Ramial Chipped Wood (RCW) would be best as they are loaded with Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium in the cambium layer saving you some money and another trip to Bunnings

Frosty Nuggets · Nov 9, 2019

Thanks Rico, I already have sugarcane mulch around them.

Rico Swazi · Nov 9, 2019

Frosty Nuggets said:
Thanks Rico, I already have sugarcane mulch around them.

Nice.

I'd like to see some pics of that sugarcane mulch when you get a chance.

Fruit trees

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