Hello from a new Orchard dweller

General Fruit Growing
#1

Hi all, after many years in NYC, I have landed in Hudson Valley and find my self on property that has a number of young fruit trees (3 apple, 2 pear, 2 peach, 2 cherry and 2 apricot), all 2 to 3 years old. We arrived in late summer and found the trees in varying stages of health. The original owner had to sell due to family reasons and planted these in hopes of enjoying them for years to come.

According to her, the trees were likely a little stunted due to the drought conditions of summer '22, but certainly had ample water this very rainy summer and fall.

I want to be the best caretaker I can be (knowing virtually nothing), and hopefully enjoy the fruits of my labors (and trees).

I am hopeful that this forum will provide me with great resources for the months ahead. I feel fairly confident with prepping for winter, but have no idea of best plan for spring regarding fertilizing. spraying etc.

Thanks in advance, and I hope to be a good and active member of this forum.

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#2

Welcome to the forum. There are lots of growers here with similar conditions to yours. Watch the posts of @alan. He is near you and very experienced. Search for his posts here. He has things like spraying for pests figured out and has posted such.

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#3

Oh that’s great, thank you. I’ll check him out!

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#4

Welcome, Steve.

@fruitnut has tagged @alan for you.
If you want to tag someone, use a @ symbol in front of that person’s handle name i.e. @saenyc. That person will be notified. Hope Alan will chime in.

To use a search function here

  • look for the looking glass symbol on the top right hand corner of the page.
  • click on it
  • type in keywords such as apple problems, peach pests, etc.
  • hit the return button on your keyboard

Threads that contain those key words will show up.
You will have a lot to learn. People here are helpful. Ask away.

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#5

Hello @saenyc! I meant to greet you long back, but unfortunately my job got busy.

This welcome message got really long, but I decided to write you a message about all the things I was most confused about when I first learned about fruit trees. Since you say you know virtually nothing. I hope you can find something useful in it!

Over a year ago I found myself in a similar situation to yours (buying a house with existing fruit trees, knowing nothing about fruit trees). I found this forum after doing endless google searches trying to learn and here is my first post: 40 sad and neglected apple/pear/asian pear trees need your guidance! or should I get rid of them? - #40 by murky.

I have learned a ton just lurking around and reading a million old threads and slowly my trees are getting better - they were really, really neglected. Once I decided to keep (many of) the existing trees, I decided in for a penny, in for a pound, and bought 10 more trees and some raspberry and blackberry plants.

Here are some of the things I found most useful, being totally new (in no order):

  1. Stuff on pruning -

  • Tree height In general, people are trying to keep their trees short. This is practical for being able to maintain them from the ground. Ladders and tree climbing are dangerous and time consuming. If I had young trees or a fence or lived in a different place, I would choose short trees.

    I already had many tall, mature trees that weren’t going to get shorter. SO MUCH emphasis is put on keeping trees short, I was really discouraged. But it became clear that due to my situation - pest pressure, love of pears, and already needing to figure out tall trees, I was going have to figure out tall trees. If you plan on taller trees I can give you some of my “tall tree” tips.

    @alan (who works and lives in your area) also cannot have short trees. Here is one of his posts on squirrel baffles - which is why short trees won’t work for him.
    @clarkinks also has tall trees, I think because pears just prefer to grow that way

  • Pruning Peach - peach trees are weird and only grow fruit on 1 year old wood. Therefore, they’re a bit different and wood renewal is super important. They also have a limited “productive” lifespan, between 10-20 years - but depends on your definition of “productive” and local conditions.

Also, it seems pretty universal that peach pruning is better done when it’s warm.

  1. Pests and Diseases - Just one year of watching my fruit trees and my neighbor’s convinced me that I had to do some spraying.

    There are people who don’t spray and have fruit - my neighbor has an old apple tree that produces tons of fruit. It is huge and is never sprayed. The fruit is ugly and has some bugs, but both of us eat it. Mostly though, it seems like you must do some spraying or pest control to get fruit.

    I started my research and buying of stuff too late in the year. I didn’t get an oil or lime-sulfur spray done in the early spring and my trees suffered for it (pear mites which were so bad that the trees lost all their leaves). So don’t be like me and look into this early.

    There are two pretty simple spray programs detailed in the guides:

    I found it oddly helpful to read through the very detailed, very much not simple, very much not “low” anything 2023 Spray Bulletin for Commercial Tree Fruit Growers . It is very specific about which pests/diseases to look out for on each tree, what to spray for which pest/disease and when to spray it, and which sprays are effective. I could then pick out the minimal (and available) stuff I wanted.

    The guide is meant for VA, but from what I’ve seen the general gist is similar enough between VA and NY. The VA one is free and comprehensive. I would think much of it wouldn’t apply to growers in the west or further south than VA, as those seem to have different issues.

    VA extension also puts out a bulletin for home fruit which is less detailed and doesn’t show as many options (eg. it only shows Sevin for the Japanese beetle), but I still found it super useful, especially for the descriptions of diseases and pests:
    Homegrounds Pest and Disease Management 2023
    Fruit begins in section 3-1 page 89

  2. Everything is local - Whether a particular variety does well, what pests you have, what works and what doesn’t. It seems like in the end you have to make the best educated guess and hope it works for your situation. Two places in zone 6b (I am in zone 6b in VA!) can be completely different. Even people near me but who aren’t surrounded by cedar trees have a very different experience.

  3. Get your soil tested. It’s cheap and then you know if/what you need to amend with. It seems like most people fertilize, though with a lot less fertilizer than I’d have guessed.

I might add more later… but this is getting super long!! Best Wishes!

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Spraying and other advice for new fruit orchard in VA
#6

But worth the time. Very useful synopsis and I hope to see more. Thank you.

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#7

Thank you @benthegirl. This is all super helpful. It’s a bit overwhelming and I want to do what I can to give these trees the best shot at surviving and thriving. We didn’t get the property until late July and didn’t really know what we could do. The apple (3), pear (2) and peach (2) trees seem to be doing ok… but the two cherry trees are small and spindly and the two apricot trees don’t look to be in very good shape. My real goal is to get smarter over the next two months and come out strong in spring. All of your info will help that a lot.

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#8

Here is some light winter reading from links I’ve collected over the years. The first is from New York. The rest are from Wisconsin, so take them for what they’re worth. The last is a general overview, which I still refer to.

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