Your Small Kitchen Garden

Some weeks ago, I admonished visitors to Your Small Kitchen Garden blog to think about planting fruit in the fall. It’s fall. So, plant fruit!

In earlier posts, I provided encouragement about planting strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, grapes, pears, peaches, apples, cherries, and plums: Plant Fruit. Let’s talk a bit more about pears, peaches, apples, cherries, and plums.

Before you Buy

I originally posted about fruit to help people decide whether they want to deal with the hassles of fruit-growing. Most of the continental United States (those in hardiness zone 5) is at the critical decision point: plant now, or miss out until spring. I argued in my earlier posts that now is better…

But before you rush off to the garden store (or click over to an on-line store), answer some questions:

Choose a Spot in Your Small Kitchen Garden

If a tree is going into the soil in your yard, evaluate the location. Will your fruit tree get at least six hours of direct sunlight every day? Look at nearby trees, if there are any. The five-foot tall spruce hedge on your neighbor’s property may not be a problem today, but in five years, it could completely shade out part of your yard.

If the crown of the tree you choose will be 30 feet across at maturity, plant it at least 15 feet from the nearest obstruction.

Measure for Size

The crown of a dwarf variety of fruit tree may extend only 4 feet around the tree’s trunk (perhaps, 8 feet in diameter). The crown of another dwarf variety may extend 15 feet around the trunk (30 feet in diameter). It’s pointless to choose a variety of fruit tree without knowing how much space you have for it, so measure the space you’ve chosen.

With aggressive pruning, you can confine many varieties of fruit trees to smaller spaces than they’d choose for themselves, but this must be a work of love: pruning is a late-winter activity that you ought to do annually. If you miss a year or two, you might regret having planted a large variety of tree in a confined space (just saying).

Evaluate the Drainage

It’s sad if the first choice location for a fruit tree in your small kitchen garden is in a depression, or in a level spot at the bottom of a hill. In a very dry year, you’ll be happy to have water accumulate around your tree during rare rain storms. However, in wet years, a tree planted on low ground can suffer from having its roots submerged in water for days or weeks at a time.

Dave Wilson Nursery has a nice web page about how to plant a tree (Dave Wilson Nursery). They suggest a test you can use to determine whether your soil drains properly for a tree: Dig a hole about 1 foot deep and fill it with water. Let it drain, then fill it again. If it takes longer than 3 or 4 hours to drain on the 1st or 2nd filling, you have problems! They also suggest if you really want to plant in a place with poor drainage, that you build a raised bed and go right ahead.

In Ground, or Above Ground?

This photo of trees planted in a raised bed is from the Dave Wilson Nursery web site.

Trees are amazingly adaptable and will try to make a go whatever the soil conditions you subject them to. However, if your yard sits on rocks, clay, or both, you need to make adjustments; it’s pointless to start your fruit trees where they’ll need to struggle for water and nutrition.

If you can dig in the soil, you can amend it with a mix of high-quality topsoil and humus. If you can’t dig in your soil, or you’d rather not, then consider using a container or building a deep raised bed for the tree. Again, for further thoughts on raised beds (and a lot of other useful information about planting trees), check out the Dave Wilson Nursery web site.

When You Decide to Dig

Chances are, you’ve already heard this: Call a local authority before you dig. Electric, telephone, and TV cable wires all might run through your yard… as well as water and sewer lines. Oh, and if you’re rural enough, you probably have a large septic field in the yard—maybe two of them: an active one and a spent one.

Don’t plant fruit trees on an active septic field. This isn’t a rule… some trees will prefer the septic environment, and it might take years for their roots to plug up the field’s drainage system. But why take chances? If you have a retired septic field in your yard, on the other hand, it might be the perfect space for a new orchard.

In any case, make certain you know how deep you can dig safely before you fall in love with a location for your fruit tree. When you call about the services, ask whether, and how deep you can dig. They may send someone to mark the paths of underground cables or pipes, so call immediately if you’re going to plant soon.

My pear tree has a crack running from its first branch down to the ground; it’s time to plant a replacement.

A final thought about planting over underground wires and pipes: Planting over them isn’t so much a problem as is the potential long-term impact on the health of your tree. If a service company needs to excavate to make repairs six or seven years from now, your fruit tree may not survive the ordeal. If planting over services is your only option in your limited space, opt for a large container and a very dwarf variety of fruit tree… you’ll be able to move the tree the next time a utility company digs up your yard to fix something.

Are You Ready to Plant Fruit?

If you’re building a raised bed, best to do so before you have a fruit tree on-hand… after it’s built, you’ll need to fill it with soil, and that might mean scheduling a delivery by a landscaping supply store. If you’re going to dig a hole, you’re probably safe having the tree on-hand before you start—though, again: if you need to upgrade your soil, make sure you have that finished before you adopt a tree and take it home.

I’m going to plant a new pear tree in my yard this fall. The one that came with the house has rotted at least halfway through near its base, and I doubt it’ll be standing two or three years from now. I’ll share the procedure with you as it unfolds. I can’t guarantee the timing of posts on the topic because I haven’t been to the local nurseries yet, and I may need to order on-line. Believe it or not, some on-line suppliers aren’t yet shipping fruit trees for fall planting.

Some links to more information about fruit trees:

• Landscaping In Small Places And Planting Fruit Trees – Almost every month we find that we are being bombarded by new diet or exercise plans created specially to tempt us change the way we lead our lives. It is true that we all should really closely examine our current behaviour with a view …

• Shapes For Fruit Trees: Winning Gardening Guide – Through the use of pruning techniques, it is possible to shape your tree to a particular style. There are seven main tree shapes that all have their own advantages for particular situations. During the growth of the tree, simply cut off …

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