A home fruit planting carefully selected, properly located, and well managed can enhance the home landscape, provide high?quality fruits and serve as a satisfying hobby. Though is about Apple, Pear, Peach, Plum, Cherry, Apricot, or Strawberry, Blueberries, Raspberries, Blackberries, Grapes, Persimmon, the home fruit garden requires considerable care. Thus, people not willing or able to devote some time to a fruit planting will be disappointed in its harvest. Growing fruit at home can be fun and provide your family with fresh, flavorful and nutritious food. The benefits are many: • You can grow large amounts of fruit in a relatively small area • Fruits are a good source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, and fiber • If you carefully choose the kinds and cultivars (varieties) of a fruit before you plant, you can harvest dessert-quality fruit from early summer through the fall • As an added bonus, the fruits you grow will taste much better than the fruits you find in the grocery store. Before you begin, you need to invest considerable effort into site selection, soil preparation, and planting plans. Before you order plants, you also need to learn about their pollination needs, their winter hardiness, and how susceptible they are to pests. Some fruits are easier to grow than others. Tree fruits and grapes usually require more protection from insects and diseases than strawberries and blackberries. So, strawberries aren’t much harder to grow than most annual garden crops and bear fruit quickly. Most tree fruits, on the other hand, require a large commitment to pruning, pest management, and care, and they won’t bear fruit right away. Generally speaking, flowers and fruits of fruit trees must be protected by pesticide sprays from before blossom?time until harvest. In addition, sprays may be required to protect leaves, the trunk, and branches. window.google_render_ad(); Small fruits are perhaps the most desirable of all fruits in the home garden since they come into bearing in a shorter time and usually require few or no insecticide or fungicide sprays. Make sure you are ready to devote the time to your planting before you start. The success of your home fruit planting will be determined largely by: • how susceptible your fruit site is to frost? • whether your fruit site receives adequate sun. • whether your site has well-drained soil at least 8 inches deep. • whether you choose plants that are adapted to your fruit site and winter hardy. • your ability to prevent fruits damage from diseases, insects, weeds and wildlife. • your ability to use good fruits cultural practices, including providing adequate water. • your ability to do what is required in a timely manner. Fresh fruits can be available throughout the growing season with proper selection of types and cultivars (varieties). Fruits soils and sites Plant fruits avoiding poorly drained areas. Deep, sandy loam soils, ranging from sandy clay loams to coarse sands or gravel mixtures, are good fruit soils. On heavier soils, plant in raised beds or on soil berms to improve drainage. All fruit crops are subject to damage from late spring freezes. Hills, slopes or elevated areas provide better air drainage and reduce frost damages. Make certain that the air can move freely throughout the planting site and is not “boxed” in with surrounding terrain or tree borders. Fruits do best in full sun. They can tolerate partial shade, but fruit quality will be lowered. Size of fruits planting area Plan the fruit planting to fit the area involved as well as family needs. A smaller planting, well cared for, will usually return more quality fruit and enjoyment to the grower than a larger neglected one. One?half acre or less planted to adapted cultivars of the best kinds of fruit is usually adequate for the average family. Plans for fruits planting While growing fruit at home can be rewarding, it will cost time and money. To reduce these costs, carefully consider the design of your planting, including arrangement, spacing, cultivar selection, number of plants, and aesthetics. Develop a planting plan well in advance of the planting season. Determine the kinds of fruits, cultivars, and quantities of each needed. Locate a source of plants and make arrangements for plants to be available at the desired time of planting. One common mistake is to put the plants too close together. Allow ample room for growth so you can prune and perform other tasks. Another common error is to put in more plants than you need. A small planting that receives proper care will yield more good-quality fruit than a larger planting that is neglected. Perennial weeds such as bermudagrass and johnsongrass compete heavily with young plantings and should be eliminated before planting. This can be done by spraying with a post?emergence herbicide such as glyphosate (Roundup‰) in late summer the year before planting or by shading out weeds by growing hybrid sudangrass for the year prior to planting. Strawberries especially should not be planted in newly turned under bermudagrass sod. Not only will the bermudagrass regrow and cause extreme competition problems because of the short height of the strawberry plants, but the white grubs that frequently infest bermudagrass sod can destroy the strawberry roots. For best survival and production, supplemental water should be provided in the summer. Locate your fruit plantings near a water source. Fruit planting If possible, set the plants immediately after arrival. If fruits roots are dry, completely immerse the roots in water for a few minutes or overnight before planting. Always water plants immediately after planting. Never allow the roots to dry out or freeze. When trees planting is delayed several days, heel in the trees by forming a mound of loose soil or mulching material. Place the roots into this mound, cover them, and moisten. The trees may be vertical or horizontal as long as the roots are covered. This protects the fruit trees from drying or freezing. Set trees about the same depth that they grew in the nursery row. Trim off broken and dried roots. Place topsoil around the roots and firm the soil to exclude air. Settle the soil with water and make sure the roots are left in a natural outward position. Leave a small basin one or two inches deep around the tree to aid in watering. Prune back about one?third of the tree top. Wrap the trunk from the soil line up to the first branches (or 18 inches above the ground) to protect the trunk from sunscald, rodent injury, insect damage, and drying out. Fruit plants cultural practices During the first summer, cultivate or mulch around the fruit plants to reduce competition from other plants and to conserve moisture and fertility. Irrigation is especially important in the first few years while the planting becomes established. Pollination and fruits set One of the most common questions home fruit growers ask is, “Why won’t my plants set fruit?” There are many possible reasons for poor fruit set, including: • a late spring frost. • cold or rainy weather during bloom. • disease. • poor plant nutrition. • inadequate pollination. • lack of a compatible cultivar for cross-pollination in species that are not “self-fruitful.” Pollination and subsequent seed development are prerequisites for fruit set. With most fruits, flowers that appear in early spring begin as buds that form in the axils of the leaves during the previous year. Flowers of many fruits bloom during early spring and can be damaged by frost. If temperatures fall below 30 degrees F when the flowers are vulnerable, some or all may be killed, reducing or eliminating fruit set. Pollination occurs after the flowers have opened. Some fruits, such as grapes and peaches, shed pollen from their anthers (the male part of the flower), which falls by gravity or is carried by wind currents to the pistil (female part of the flower). With strawberries, blueberries, apples, plums, and sweet cherries, insects carry the pollen from flower to flower. Heavy rains during bloom can interfere with pollen distribution or insect activity. Seed formation will be poor if pollination is inadequate, and seed formation is essential for the growth and development of most fruits. For example, apples with only a few seeds will fall off the tree in June or remain small and misshapen. Some fruits, such as strawberries, raspberries, peaches, tart cherries, and grapes, are self-fruitful fruits. Each plant can set fruit with just its own pollen. Other fruits, such as apples, sweet cherries, pears, plums, apricots, and elderberries, are not self-fruitful fruits. They require cross-pollination from another cultivar for fruit to set. Blueberry plants are self-fruitful, but berry size is larger with cross-pollination from another cultivar. Most nursery catalogs provide information about which cultivars are good for pollinating each other-for blueberries and other fruit crops as well. Certain apple cultivars, such as Jonagold and Rhode Island Greening, produce pollen that is ineffective in setting fruit on other cultivars. To be sure of adequate cross-pollination, plant at least three different apple cultivars. With groups of sweet cherry cultivars, the pollen of some cultivars is not compatible with others within the group. Yet the cultivar Stella is cross compatible with most sweet cherry cultivars and provides a good source of pollen for other cultivars. Stella is also self-fruitful. Many European plums (often called prune plums because of their high sugar content) are partially self-fruitful. But you can improve their fruit set by planting two or more cultivars. You will need to plant two or more cultivars of Asian plums because most are not self-fruitful. Plant all fruit trees used as “pollenizers” within 100 feet of the cultivar to be pollinated. You may need fewer plants if you rely on neighbors’ trees as pollenizers, but you could have a major problem if those trees are destroyed.
Aura Angheliu is a Romanian floral designer with many ideas of natural decorations, freelance writer of nature, flowers and plants, traditional treatments and of the flower shop business. She also loves nature, flowers and to make floral arrangements.
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