Caring Properly for your Fruit Tree
Caring Properly for your Fruit Tree
If you have just recently planted a
new fruit tree, I think it is safe to assume you are not yet an expert on the
subject. More fruit trees die in their beginning years due to poor care habits
than any disease or pestilence. Therefore it is vital that you understand how
to care for trees in a way that will ensure their immediate success as well as
future good health.
During the first stages of the tree’s
life, the roots, trunk, and branches have not yet fully developed to a self
supporting strength. Therefore if your tree is growing fruits, occasionally the
combined weight is enough to snap off an entire branch. If this is the case,
you should provide external support for your branches – prop them up with
boards, or tie them to something at a higher altitude. As long as you can
provide your tree the support it needs in these early years, it should grow to
be independent in no time at all.
Proper nutrition is not only necessary
for the production of healthy fruits, but is also necessary for the tree to
survive longer than one season. The exact specifications vary with the area,
climate, and type of tree, but I’ve found that there is no better source than a
nursery employee. Maybe they’re just eager to sell you the right type of
fertilizer, but in my experience, they are almost never wrong. Just inform them about the conditions your
tree is living in and how healthy it is looking, and they should be able to
help you find something to improve the state of your tree.
Lots of people think that the only
way to ensure a tree’s healthiness is to provide it insane amounts of water.
This is not the case at all. As a matter of fact, giving too much water to a
tree can be more harmful than making it go thirsty. At best it will have a
negative effect on the taste of the fruit. But at worst, your entire tree could
die and prevent you from ever growing fruit in the future. So do not ever try
to solve your problems by giving it lots of water! Solve your tree’s health
problems at the root, so to speak. Go to where the problem originates from, and
fix that.
If it is too late and you’re already
starting to see unhealthy branches that look either diseased or damaged, you
should always remove them. If the tree is wasting nutrients by sending them out
to the branch that cannot be saved, it is practically throwing away all the
nutrients that it could use on the other, healthier branches. As soon as you
start to see a branch that is deteriorating or becoming unhealthy, chop it off
right away. At the very least, trim down the unhealthy part but leave all the
segments that still look like they could continue growing.
Once your tree has started to enter
the picking stage, never leave any of the fruit on the ground that is bound to
fall. Also, be careful to get every piece off of the tree. Even if it is an
ugly looking fruit that you don’t want to keep, you should still pick it and
throw it away. Once these fruits begin to rot, they provide a perfect home for
unwanted insects or diseases that can transfer to the tree itself. So always
remember to rake up these fallen fruits, and prevent yourself a lot of future
grief.
Getting a fruit tree and caring for
it throughout its life can be a daunting task. It may even seem impossible
sometimes to keep track of all the factors that make a tree healthy. But if you
just pay attention to the nutrients that your tree needs, you should be on a
good path. In addition to nutrients, figure out the precise amount of watering
that you should be doing to keep your tree’s thirst quenched without drowning
it. Just do all these things, and you will have a great tree that produces
delicious fruits.
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