You want an orchard but you only have room for one tree…
Get a grafted tree.
Dwarf and semi-dwarf trees are short and really short trees. You can plant one or you can plant a border of these and call it a day.
Regular versus dwarf trees
Regular “standard” trees are for people who have tons of land or the perfect space for a giant tree. Those are giant apple trees you can climb—the one Newton sat under when the apple smashed him on the head, unlocking math problems for centuries of kids.
A full-sized fruit tree can be big–cherry trees can grow up to 35-feet. Plum, pear, apricot, and citrus trees grow to about 20 feet, and my dead apple tree was a solid 25-feet the day we chopped it down.
You can prune a standard tree and keep it short but it’s instinct is to grow.
Semi-dwarf trees are a mid-grade size, closer to 15 feet. Dwarf trees range from 8-10 feet. Since they’re all regular trees grafted onto a trunk that encourages them to grow shorter, they all give you regular size fruit.
You can get dwarf bushes, too, like blueberries that fit into containers instead of growing 8 feet high.
How do they do this?
Arborists fuse “scions” (shoots) from full-sized fruit trees onto dwarf rootstock. They cut off a branch, and fuse the full-sized fruit scion onto the dwarf-growing rootstock, tape it up, put some wax over it, and let it heal and grow.
You magically get a bunch of big fruit on a little tree.
You can do this yourself by ordering the right rootstock and hacking up some trees, but I ordered my trees from nurseries that specialize in local-growing varieties, then I looked for some sales.
Supergrafting: multiple-fruit varieties on one tree
What if you can’t decide which apple tree you want? You can get one with several different varieties of apple on the same tree. They save space, and each species helps pollinate the others. And, it looks really cool—green apples on one branch, red on another… four varieties of cherry on one tree…
Maybe somewhere along the line arborists got bored or stoned.
But, multi-variety grafted fruit trees are fruit self-sufficiency if you’re urban, land restricted, or only have a few sunny spaces for a fruit tree.
Last year, I got two 4-variety grafted trees—an apple and a cherry. I fenced them in—I’ve had deer eat my small trees, and a dog ate the last four-variety apple tree.
Pro tip: If you’re going to plant, invest the time in nets or fences, right away. They don’t have to be beautiful–they just have to work.
Another benefit of multi-variety grafted trees are the varieties are staggered. Fruit ranges from early harvest to late, which means I’ll get a steady flow of apples and cherries from these trees for a very long season.
Protect your fruit or you’re feeding the wildlife
We have a giant pear tree. Every year since we moved in, I’d wait for pears. Then, one day they’d be gone.
So, one year, I set up a stakeout. Gimpy, our three-legged deer friend, was eating the pears just before they were sweet enough for me to pick. She’d eat the low hanging fruit, then jump up on her two hind legs and eat more, and share with her family.
The dog saw this one day before chasing the deer away. “This is a ball tree!” The dog knocked pears from the tree and carried them around and dropped them at my feet to play fetch.
One day, I bit an underripe pear.
“An food ball tree?” That was the best thing ever.
The moral of the story—protect your fruit. Or, you won’t have any.
Tips for tree shopping
Choose the size and height
If you’ve got the space get standard trees. They’ll give you the most bang for your buck. If you’ve got very limited space, get mini-dwarf or dwarfs, and if you’re really hard up for space, definitely get grafted multi-fruit trees.
Choose trees from a local nursery or one with a reputation for growing good trees in your climate zone. Even better if there’s a guarantee for the tree.
As a rule of thumb, the bigger the tree, the more expensive it is, but, the closer to fruiting it will be. This year I invested in some taller trees from 4′–6′ tall.
Ask yourself–“When do I want to eat?” A one or two year tree—a single stem or one with a couple pruned branches grown from seed—takes a decade to really grow fruit. So, investing in a good tree that’s already been growing somewhere else will cut out years of waiting.
Dwarf and semi-dwarf trees can start to give you apples in two to four years after you plant them, depending on their development and variety.
I expected my new grafted trees to fruit, but the got some shock and dropped their fruit. This is normal—it’s a tough life getting transplanted on the other side of the country. This year, I’m finally getting a bunch of peaches from a peach tree I planted four years ago.
The moral of this part of the story…the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, like the Chinese proverb says. The second best time, though… is now.
Prune properly
Every year, you’ll want to check and prune your trees. I didn’t prune for years because I felt I was murdering potential fruit. Just the opposite is true.
The more you cut back and prune properly, the more energy goes into growing healthy fruits and branches. I learned this after a storm crushed several ornamental trees in my front yard. I hacked them back, and in one year they grew fuller than ever, with double and triple branches growing from the cuts.
This is all deep horticultural science, well above the “poser” level. I had to watch some YouTube to get the basics. I learned I can control growth, fruit, and number of branches that grow by angle and placement of cuts. I can shape a tree, give it airflow, and—keep it alive.
To spray or not to spray?
I’ve got some curly leaves this year. This is called “leaf curl.” I appreciate the tree guys who don’t name stuff in Latin.
One of my apple trees has “rust” or yellow spots, and four years ago gypsy moths almost defoliated the state.
No one wants to spray, but targeted treatment at the right time can save your tree (and your garden). Be proactive about identifying problems. Don’t be an ultra purist unless you have the skill to organically treat real problems. I’ve killed several trees that way.
“If you want to eat you have to spray.” Charlotte, one of my farmers, told me that. She told me we’d all starve to death if nobody sprayed. I just try to do it as little and as healthily as possible.
The leaf curl is a fungus—to remediate it meant I would’ve had to have sprayed it with copper fungicide in late winter, so it’s too late for this year. But, I’ll do my best and give some love and care in every way I can.
I sprayed “PT,” a natural pesticide, to get beetles, and earlier “BT” to get caterpillars and larva. If you’re seeing a ton of nonsense on your plants and trees, you might be too late.
Fruit while you wait, or if you have a bad harvest
I’m getting a peach or two, and a pear if the dog and deer share, but to get enough fruit to eat and save for the winter, I need to source it. .
I pick the berries—blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries are expensive to source and buy but reasonable to pick.
Apple picking here is an “experience.” It’s tons cheaper to buy “B-Grades,” or leftovers that weren’t shaped right for the store. Why would I want to pay 3x the price for the “experience” of doing work. Apple picking is work.
I can get “B grades” for other things I can and preserve, too—tomatoes, peppers, and peaches.
That doesn’t work for blueberries, so I set my calendar to one or two picking days and try to keep up with the farm workers and grandmas out there harvesting with me.
But I’m looking forward to the time when the Poser Homestead will have enough fruit on its own to make it through a year. We’re not there yet, but “plant a tree today” is starting to pay off…
So soon, we’ll be baking our own apple pie!
The post Small Homestead? Get Grafted Fruit Trees appeared first on Poser Homestead. Photo by Ian Baldwin on Unsplash