Fruity Food – How to care for your urban fruit trees

Producing fruit from your urban lot feels a little like magic. Plucking a ripe apple while out in your garden is one of the profound and lifechanging joys of edible landscaping.

However, after the glow of new fruit tree plantings wears off, there is the reality of continued upkeep: pruning, pest control, and diseases. The little “dwarf” apple tree that you purchased may very well grow to twelve feet tall and wide.

Last year, I offered to help neighbors with harvesting their fruit trees to donate to the local food bank. What I found was overgrown trees with pest ridden fruit that was all basically unusable. It was sad and completely unavoidable with a little pruning and pest prevention.

Here are a few helpful tips and resources to ensure you get the most from your fruit trees, and then you can worry about what to do with it all. Hint: Donate it to your local food bank!

#1. Plan before bringing home a new baby

You wouldn’t bring home baby chicks without first having the brooder and coop ready. Same goes with a fruit tree! Do your research on the various root stocks (mature size is very important - measure your space!), variety, and potential pest and disease issues. The trees sold at a big box store are not always good varieties for our climate. Also, select wisely for your space: consider soil, sun, and measure for space for the mature tree size. Do you have space for a twelve-foot tree? Are you willing to invest the time to prune it every year?

I suggest growing dwarf varieties, espalier trees, or columnar apple trees for a low maintenance urban food forest. I sell a unique selection of fruiting trees and shrubs perfect for urban spaces, including columnar apples. Check out my online shop.

#2. Pruning: Learn when and how

Different fruiting trees and shrubs have different pruning seasons. My favorite book on fruit is “Grow Fruit Naturally” by Lee Reich. He has detailed information about the most popular fruiting trees and shrubs, including pruning, in a simple to use format including good illustrations.

Here are some important pruning basics:

When: Apples and pears are generally pruned while dormant (winter) but can also be pruned in summer, while cherries and fruit with a pit (stone fruit) are best to prune after they leaf out to avoid exposing the tree to potential fungal diseases. There are exceptions – just to confuse you! But an easy thing to remember is that dormant pruning encourages growth and summer pruning discourages growth.

How: Learn the two kinds of pruning cuts; heading and thinning. A heading cut encourages growth and a thinning cut discourages (mostly) growth. If you want to remove a limb you would want to perform a thinning cut. A thinning cut is made at the branch collar, where the limb meets the main trunk or main branch you want to keep. The branch collar has special cells that are more able to heal over, which puts less stress on the tree and is quicker to heal and protect the tree from disease. A heading cut encourages branching. Here's a great resource for learning more.

Here's a fantastic video showing you the various types of cuts and why they are so important.

Prioritize your cuts and be sure to only prune 1/3 of the tree per year. This image also show the importance of angling your cuts above a bud for best tree health.

Prioritize your cuts: Pruning too much of your tree all at once can cause fast, upright leafy growth called water sprouts. To avoid this, plant to prune off no more than 1/3 of the tree or about 30% per year. Begin with diseased and dying branches, then suckers, then crossing over branches or branches heading into the center of the tree, then water sprouts. Water sprouts can be excessive if the tree was pruned incorrectly in the past. You may not be able to cut them all back in one year and may have to gradually work to rehabilitate your tree. Cutting more than 1/3 of the tree will result in more upright vegetative growth (water sprouts) and decreased fruiting.

Tools: Get the right tools for the job. Unless you are rehabilitating a severely overgrown tree, there should be no reason to use a chainsaw! A nice pair of bypass pruners such as these, a folding hand saw like this one, and loppers should be adequate for pruning. If you do have a taller tree, an orchard ladder and a pole pruner are good investments. Don’t forget to keep your tools clean and sharp! You want straight, clean cuts. Use a diluted sanitizing spray to clean your tools between trees to avoid contamination.

Get Help: Hire a fruit tree specialist to assess your trees and help you learn to prune. Contact Marni for a consultation on how to prune your trees yourself or for referrals to local companies who can help.

#3. Pest control & Fruit Thinning

Check out this post all about organically controlling orchard pests as well as a video showing you how to thin your fruit - which is a crucial step to reducing pests and diseases. This post mostly covers flying pests that affect apples, but there are also other diseases that can affect your trees. The Lee Reich book mentioned above covers lots of common pests and diseases.

Other ways to learn

Join a local fruit society such as Seattle Tree Fruit Society. This is a great way to meet other urban farmers and take a class to expand your knowledge.

Plant Amnesty a fantastic local non-profit that offers pruning classes and has a lot of online learning resources, plus referrals to professional local horticulturists.

Share the wealth: Food banks LOVE getting donations of fresh garden grown produce and fruit! Even the smallest amounts will be put to good use feeding your community. Also, join your local Facebook Buy Nothing group to share with your immediate neighbors - this is a great way to build community while sharing resources.