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The Basics of How to Care for Your Fruit Tree

By Chris Meagher

A great many fruit trees cark it in their initial years thanks to inadequate habits of due care, compared to any infection or pestilence. Hence, it's crucial to be cognisant with the basics of how to care for your fruit tree, in a manner which will make certain of their success, along with a long life of good health and harvest production.

During the initial development of a fruit tree, the root system, trunk, and framework branches, haven't yet thoroughly progressed to be strong enough to withstand the elements, nor to be able to produce, and retain a full head of fruit. Therefore if your young tree is already producing fruit, often the overall weight is sufficient to cause the breaking off of the whole fruit bearing branches. If this is your situation, you should get rid of almost all of the fruit.

That's right, remove it. The whole point here, is to give the tree a fighting chance, to actually become a mature, fruit bearing tree. Bearing fruit is an enormous drain on a plant's resources, so in the infant years of a tree's life, do it a favour and only let a few select fruit remain to reach ripening. This will give you a stronger tree, quicker - and will forego the need of you finding either, the need to prop up weak branches over-burdoned with fruit, or, that your pet tree just never seems to get a foot-hold, producing just so-so crops.

Correct fertilising is not just needed for the production of good fruit, but is vital for the tree to be able carry on to maturity. The exact feeding needs differ depending on the geographic location, weather, and variety of tree - any doubts as to the requirements for your particular tree, can easily be addressed by returning to the shop of purchase and enquiring of an experienced nursery-person. Simply tell them about the environment your tree contends with, and how substantial, or not, it's health seems, and this expert ought to be capable of helping you locate the suitable fertilizer.

The idea that to be certain of a tree’s overall health, is to keep on giving it more and more water, is just plain wrong, as much as it would be for most plants. As a matter of fact, giving too much water to a tree can do more harm than good. Too much water can lead to fungal infections, weakening of the root system, and, or death. The correct way to water a tree, is to give it a good soaking, or deep watering once a week. Address any health problems your tree may have, by looking at the point at which the trouble comes from, and sort it out from there.

What constitutes a health problem?
This can be anything from premature fruit-drop, yellowing of leaves, loss of the majority of leaves, unsightly leaves, bleeding, lack of flowers, blossom-drop, disfigured fruit, etc. Too many for this article.

When it's already happened and you are beginning to notice damaged or diseased branches, leaves, or fruit, you need to cut the afflicted parts out. Otherwise the tree is using up nourishing substances, by delivering them along to the branch that is unable to be restored. The tree is basically throwing away lots of nutrients that would be able to be better employed on the other, more robust branches. Once you start to observe that a branch is deteriorating or looking unhealthy, cut this off promptly. At the very bare minimum, prune the unhealthy part back to a section that still continues to grow.

As soon as your harvest has begun to go into the final ripening phase, never abandon any of the crop that has landed on the ground. Likewise, be mindful to pick each and every piece of fruit from the tree. Even in cases where this happens to be an exceptionally ugly appearing piece, that you would not normally pick, this too needs to be picked and tossed into the garbage.

As soon as fruit starts to go rotten, they can give just the right home for harmful insect pests and or diseases, which can migrate to the rest of the tree. So make sure you are aware of this and rake up these dropped fruits, saving yourself a considerable amount of grief in subsequent seasons.

Nurturing a fruit tree for its entire life may sound like a daunting process, considering there is still in-depth information about pruning, pests and disease, and such like, still to be discussed. Doubtless it seems unimaginable that you will be able to remember all the elements that make up sound a tree.

However, if you just pay attention to the nutrient, water requirements and overall health of your particular tree, then you already know the basics of how to care for your fruit tree.

Mr Meagher has been a gardener and organic gardener for 45 years, permaculturist for 29 years. Further reading to be found at : Gardening Secret

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Great job Chris! We have a few fruit trees we are nurturing. We lost our beautiful peach tree to a very cold winter a couple of years ago and miss it. We do live in an area where it is difficult to keep peach trees alive but the other trees are doing well. Our apricot tree has tons of fruit developing on it this year. This is the first year in five that we haven't been hit with a heavy frost when the tree was blooming. We're sure looking forward to the fruit!

Hello there Laraine, Thank you for your comment, always a pleasure.
Indeed, isn't it devastating, when you walk out one morning - and it's all just frazzled.
I have a suggestion, if you don't mind. I have some experience with black frosts.
In hard frost areas.. Oops. Hang on - there,s an article here. Give me some small amount of time and I will submit an article.
Regards Chris.

Hello there biblefreeorg, always a pleasure.
How long is a piece of string?
I have always had the habit of never being able to pass by a plant, without taking either seed, or cuttings. It's a bit like an addiction, really. I have been informed, far too many times, that I am no fun to walk with - because "it just takes sooo long". Not surprisingly, I have far too many fruit trees to mention and probably one third of them, would be completely useless to most people as far as fruiting ability goes - but they interest me, so they remain.
As far as favourites go, well, for overall sensory pleasure, I would have to say Tamarillo, or Tree Tomato.
For out-right eating - Tangellos.
In the matter of out-right fascination, as a plant one can "do" things with - grapes.
And, I suppose because of my Anglo genes - anything deciduous, so that I can prune it.
I seem to have fallen in love with the Ice-Cream Bean Tree (Inga edulis), too. Fascinating plant.
All of the above may well change within a season, depending on what piques my interest.
Thanks for asking.
Regards Chris.

I'll be watching for it, Chris. I know some fruit growers put out smudge pots, others use windmills and still others have recommended spraying water on the buds before the sun hits them. We don't have a whole orchard though so some of these suggestions are too extravagant for us. I will be interested to see what you have found.

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