I’ve been absent around these parts for awhile. I was busy selling my house, but I just bought a new place and I’m ready to hit the ground running on a new orchard. Our new lot is tiny (3,000 sf with most of that being the house) and some unique shade issues. Anyway, long story short, I’m going to be growing at least half of my trees in pots. It’ll be a fun experiment.
So this brings me to my question: have any of you grown multiple trees in one container? I realize it’s probably better to give them their own container, but I’m willing to experiment.
I was thinking of trying two pluots, maybe Emerald Drop and Flavor Grenade, together so they can pollinate each other. I’ve been eying a 32 gallon square pot at West Elm. Seems like a solid size to me but I’m not very experienced with container gardening.
Thoughts?
I remember fruitnut growing more than 1 in a single pot (smaller than the one you mention I think). Hopefully he can chime in with more details.
What say you, @fruitnut? Any tips?
I’ve fruited apricots in 3 gal and 3-4 trees in 12 gallon. It requires regular watering, once a day, for sure.
I got the pics mixed. First and 3rd are 3 nectarines in 12 gallon. 2nd and 4th are 4 in a 30 gallon.
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Wow, that’s a tight fit! Last time I asked about growing in containers the consensus seemed to be 15 gallons per tree.
How big do you think the trees would get? I’d like the get them to 5-6 feet? Any issues with getting a decent fruit set when they’re crammed in together?
They’ll get 5-6ft or taller depending on growing conditions. It takes a lot of thinning to get decent size fruit. Fruit will always be smaller than normal IME. They’ll get bigger than pictured depending on watering frequency.
Good info. Thanks.
Any insight on number of fruit? If I have to thin heavily, does that mean only a few per tree? When I was growing in ground I’d get a couple dozen on each of my smaller stone fruit trees.
There is lots of fruits. The same number you’d expect off any other tree that size. And the quality was excellent.
I’ve just planted up to 9 fig plants each in 25 gal fabric pots. The goal is just a few fruit off each under identical growing conditions to compare quality. I think some of those will produce 20-30 figs given the long season in my greenhouse.
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Do fruit trees benefit from using a deep or wider container?
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The only thing deep vs wide would impact is drainage. In a shallow container the perched water table would impact a bigger part of the soil volume. With the same media a shallow container would be wetter. As result I favor deeper. But I don’t use anything deeper than about 20 inches and most are 12-15.
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