Three Ways To Increase Production In Your Backyard Fruit Trees
Posted on: 13 February 2019
If you're like many modern homeowners, you'r intrigued by the idea of growing a certain amount of your own fruits and vegetables in your own backyard. Perhaps your grandparents still kept a home garden and you have fond memories of visiting them during the growing season, or maybe you've been inspired by the recent trend among homeowners to devote at least some of their backyard space to growing good things to eat. Whatever the reason, cultivating a small home orchard ensures delicious and nutritious fare for the table, provides a sense of satisfaction, and even serves as an educational tool for your children.
However, you may also be wondering how to get the most from your backyard fruit trees. Fortunately, cultivation strategies exist designed to maximize the fruit yield of backyard fruit trees — the following are three of them.
Thin the Crops After the Tree Sets Fruit
This may seem counterproductive, but thinning the crops shortly after your trees set fruit can actually result in more edible fruit at the end of the season. This practice keeps the tree's energy from being spread over a too-large amount of fruit, which has the potential to leave you with an abundance of smaller fruits that fail to ripen. Three weeks after the tree has stopped blooming, remove all but the largest from each branch offset.
Practice Proper Fertilization Fruit
trees have different nutritional needs than ornamental varieties, so be sure to use a fertilizer made specially for them rather than an all-purpose fertilizer. Keep in mind that fertilizers that are rich in nitrogen, such as those used on lawns, inhibit fruiting in trees, so be sure to avoid applying lawn fertilizer too close to your fruit trees. Replacing lawn grass growing underneath your fruit trees with a light layer of organic mulch is recommended.
Practice Proper Pruning
One of the biggest mistakes homeowners make when they decide to plant and maintain a small home orchard in their backyard is to fail to properly prune the trees. Fruit trees should be pruned during dormancy in order to avoid interference with fruit production, and young fruit trees should be pruned somewhat heavily during the first three years to optimize their fruit-bearing ability as they mature. A good pruning job also opens up the branches enough to provide the fruit with the amount of sunlight and air circulation they need in order to develop into ripe, tasty fruit you'll be happy and proud to feature on your family table.
To learn more, contact a tree care company like Schulhoff Tree & Lawn Care, Inc.
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