Trees can be a little daunting, but they can be a big boost to your garden production without much extra work. You can get many kinds of fruit from trees as well as nuts or even tap for sap and syrup. For the moment, we’ll stick to the fruit and nut harvesting.
The two biggest drawbacks to a tree are the space they need and the time investment. Typical plants will produce something for you in the first growing season. You’ll have to be more patient with trees. It’s fairly normal to wait 3 to 5 years (or longer) before you get anything from your trees. If you’re fine with that, then you’ll want to address the space issue.
You’ll usually have 2 choices when buying trees: standard or dwarf. If you’re tight on space, go for the dwarf. A standard apple tree, for example, will require at least 10 feet of space around the tree, though you can plant other small plants closer than that, you need to have at least that much room for the crown of the tree. But for that space sacrifice, you can get around 10 bushels of apples from a single tree each year. That’s a lot of fruit! A dwarf tree will require about half the space, and produce about half the harvest.
Fruit and nut trees are usually purchased as saplings, rather than started from seed. An older sapling means less waiting time before you get any fruit but it will be more awkward to transport and plant a bigger tree. When you plant, dig a hole about twice the size of the existing ball of roots, set in the tree, and fill in the space with good loose soil and maybe some compost. Spring is the best time to get a tree planted.
Once your trees start fruiting, you can expect to bring in the bounty for at least a decade or more. A good walnut tree can give you nuts for up to 50 years.
Keeping a tree healthy is a little different than your usual vegetable plants. Occasional spraying may be necessary to keep the insects at bay, though there are many natural options for that. You’ll also need to learn a bit about pruning. Cutting away dead branches is the simplest approach, and you can also help your tree with some further strategic cutting.