Choose a tree with a straight trunk and strong roots.
Fruit trees serve a dual purpose: They make an attractive centerpiece in a well-planned garden as well as helping to feed the family. They need plenty of sun and dry soil in order to produce abundant fruit.
Always consider tree maintenance before deciding where to plant fruit trees. If space is limited, an espalier tree may be a good choice. In frost-prone areas, placing any type of tree in a protected location helps to reduce the chance of damage from frost.
When choosing a fruit tree, look for a straight trunk, strong, well-distributed side branches and strong roots. Fruit trees prefer permeable soil: The roots can’t survive in heavy, damp soils.
• During transport and up to the time of planting, keep the roots moist. It is a good idea to wrap the rootball in a sheet of plastic.
• Water bare-root plants about 4 hours before planting. Remove any rotten or damaged root parts and cut back the roots a little so that they draw water better after planting.
• When planting in stony ground, dig a larger hole and give the seedling an ample amount of good earth and compost. Remove as many stones as possible before planting.
• Give a tree the right support and a good foothold. Drive a stake into the soil on the west side of the tree. It should reach into the crown. Old tights are great for securing the tree as they stretch easily and are soft enough that they won’t harm the bark.
• Wrap the trunks of young trees with straw, cardboard or jute strips to prevent the bark from drying out and cracking due to sun or frost.
• Even resistant fruit tree varieties must be checked for pests continually. For the first couple of years, keep the ground around a young tree free from plants right out to the drip line of the crown. That way its roots won’t have to compete with other plants for nutrients.
• Keep a 6–8 inch (15–20 cm) weed-free ring around the trunk of all fruit trees in order to prevent crown rot. A thick covering of well-rotted cow manure around the trunk helps to keep the roots warm and prevents them from drying out.
• In spring, control woolly aphids, a sap-sucking pest particularly affecting apple trees, by squashing or spraying with insecticidal soap or horticultural oil.
• Bronze orange bugs, or stink bugs, suck sap from the new growth of citrus. In the early spring, young insects are green. As they mature, they turn yellow, orange and then black. Remove them by picking off by hand or sucking them off with an old vacuum cleaner. Always wear eye protection, as the liquid squirted by the insects can burn your skin and cause eye damage. If your tree is fairly small, immature bugs can be controlled with horticultural oil spray, and more mature insects with pyrethrum.
• Remove the blossom of fruit trees in the first year to encourage new shoots to grow.
• Prune deciduous fruit trees on sunny, frost-free days in winter when plants are dormant. Remove crossing branches and open up the center of the tree. Cut off diseased and damaged parts, as well as all branches that are growing towards the inside or straight up.
• Citrus and most evergreen trees generally don’t need much pruning other than to keep them tidy or reduce their height, making it easier to harvest fruit.
• Codling moths time egg laying so that developing caterpillars burrow into and devour precious apples, pears and plums. Protect crops by hanging up pheromone traps containing synthetic sex hormones, which attract male moths and reduce mating.
• To reduce overwintering populations of moths, scrape away loose bark from trees. Wrap bands of cloth or corrugated cardboard around the trunk to trap the larvae. Regularly check traps and destroy any larvae.
GOOD TO KNOW 
Fertilizing for fruit
In order for a fruit tree to produce healthy fruit buds, provide it with plenty of nutrients. Apply organic fertilizer, homemade compost or decomposed animal manure three times a year. Time this to give trees a boost before flowering, as the new fruit is developing, and in the months before harvest. Don’t fertilize during flowering: It can cause trees to drop fruit.
Espalier, first popular in Europe’s medieval gardens, is the art of training trees to branch in formal patterns along a wall or on a trellis. Traditional patterns are flat one- and two-armed or U-shaped. Espalier trees make it possible to grow fruit such as apples, pears, lemons, olives and figs in a limited space. Other good trees for espalier are apricot, cherry, grape, kiwi fruit, nashi pear and quince.
• Espalier trees are high maintenance. In summer, they must be trimmed and tied in continually.
• Use wood or metal brackets to keep espaliers about 8–12 inches (20–30 cm) away from the house wall so branches open and no heat can build up.
• An espalier tree should have paired side branches off the main shoot. It’s easier to shape a tree when the branches are young and easy to bend.
• Shorten shoots that develop from side buds in late spring and bend the main shoots in the desired direction 4–8 inches (10–20 cm) before the tips.
• Cut repeatedly and prune continually until you achieve the right growth direction.
AN ESPALIER SYSTEM allows you to grow fruit in a LIMITED space.
With the industrialization of horticulture, many of the varieties of fruit trees once grown have been lost, or are no longer grown commercially. With increasing interest in these historical varieties today, a garden is the ideal place to reintroduce heirloom fruit trees.
Apples grow best in climates with mild summers and cold winters. Choose a variety that is best suited to your site and preferences.
• Eating: Beauty of Bath, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Gravenstein, Kidd’s Orange Red, Lord Lambourne.
• Storage: Arkansas Black, Bramley’s Seedling, Lady Williams.
• Early: Esopus Spitzenburg, Summer Strawberry.
• Espalier growing: Choose apples grown on dwarf rootstocks that are described as MM106 or M26. Ideally espaliered apples should fruit on spurs, not on the tips of shoots.
• Cider making: Pitmaston Pineapple, Ashmead’s Kernel, Wickson, Yarlington Mill.
• Baking: Calville Blanc d’Hiver, Bramley, Granny Smith, Gravenstein, Spitzenberg.
Fruit designated for storage should have no bruises. This apple picker prevents the fruit from falling to the ground.
• Early to fruit: Beurre d’Anjou, Potomac.
• Good flavor: Blake’s Pride, White Douyenne, Clapp’s Favorite.
• Good cooking varieties: Kieffer, Beurre Bosc, William’s Bon Chrétien.
Cherries, apricots, peaches and plums thrive in cool and Mediterranean climates, and some types are suitable for coastal and subtropical zones.
• Cherries with particularly split-resistant skins include Regina and Lapins. Both are also excellent for preserving, as is the sour cherry Morello.
• Good plums for preserving are the Damson, Greengage, Mirabelle and Victoria.
• Peaches for cold winters and hot, dry summers include Cresthaven, Gleason Early Elberta, Ranger, Polly, Veteran. For coastal and subtropical gardens look for low-chill varieties such as Flordaprince, Santa Barbara Peach, and Red Baron.
• Moorpark and Tilton are varieties of apricot that produce large fruit. Other varieties include the cold-hardy Moongold and, for warmer and coastal areas, Goldkist and Newcastle.
• Although many apricots are self-pollinating, much more fruit will be set if you plant two varieties close together that will flower at the same.
SEVERAL OF THE OLD VARIETIES OF plums preserve well.
No backyard, however small, should be without a citrus tree, whether it’s a decorative kumquat in a pot or a lemon tree in the garden. Most varieties require a warm, frost-free climate.
• Eureka is the best variety of lemon for warm temperate to tropical areas and in coastal gardens. Fruit is borne for most of the year, with good crops in summer, and it keeps well on the tree.
• For cooler climates, choose Meyer or Lisbon. The latter is a good winter-cropping lemon that tolerates heat and humidity.
• Lots A Lemons is a good variety of lemon for pots. It’s a naturally dwarf form of Meyer, growing to only 5–6 feet (1.5–2 m) tall, and produces masses of thin-skinned fruit.
• Limes do well in pots or in the garden. The Tahitian lime is easy to grow in frost-free, temperate to tropical gardens. Grow Kaffir lime for its leaves and rind—both ingredients in some Southeast Asian cuisines—not for its fruit.
• Kumquats thrive in containers, but in frost-prone areas move them to a protected spot in winter.
• Not only is the kumquat tree ornamental, its winter-ripening fruit is great for making preserves, marmalade and kumquat brandy.
• The Valencia orange grows well from temperate regions to the tropics. The Washington Navel has easy-to-peel fruit with very few seeds and fruits best in inland regions with warm summers and cool winters.
• If you live in a frost-prone area, mandarins are a good citrus choice. Gold Nugget is a vigorous variety that can be grown in containers.
MEYER LEMONS are small trees with good COLD TOLERANCE.
Figs and olives, cultivated for thousands of years around the Mediterranean, grow best in areas with long, hot summers and cool winters. Pomegranate is an old-fashioned fruit tree that is tough and adaptable to all conditions—even the tropics. It is also highly ornamental, with vibrant orange-red flowers followed by large round reddish fruit in late summer and autumn.
• Plant a fig tree when dormant in winter, in a well-drained position in full sun. In hot climates it will tolerate some shade.
• Figs are low-maintenance, requiring very little pruning. They respond well to a dose of chicken manure in spring and deep, regular watering.
• Pick figs when the neck of the fruit begins to droop, and wear gloves as the sap in the leaves and stems can irritate the skin.
• Olives need a spot in full sun with good air circulation for the best flower and fruit production. They are frost-tolerant once established but need some protection when young. To set fruit, they need at least 200 chilling hours.
• Avoid overfertilizing olives with manures and rich compost, as this can kill them. Instead apply a light application in late winter or early spring before flowering and again after harvesting the fruit in autumn.
• For eating, choose Sevillano and Helena varieties of olives; Frantoio and Arbequina are good for oil. Kalamata, Manzanillo and Hardy’s Mammoth produce olives that serve either purpose.
• Harvest olives the traditional way by shaking or hitting the tree over a net spread underneath, or pick them by hand, which is best for table olives.
• Pomegranate fruit doesn’t ripen after harvesting, so leave it on the tree until it has a good color.
GOOD TO KNOW
Fig care
The longer figs are left on the tree, the sweeter they get, but the more susceptible they become to splitting, fungal disease and being eaten by birds, bats and possums. As the fruit ripens, cover the tree with netting reaching to the ground.
Avocado and mango trees prefer warm, frost-free conditions and are best suited to subtropical and tropical climates. Not only do they produce delicious fruit—their dense foliage also makes them excellent shade trees.
• Avocados grown from seed take 7–10 years to reach maturity and to begin to produce fruit. For faster results in 3–4 years, look for grafted, named varieties suited to the climate of your area.
• Plant avocado trees in spring. They need deep, rich soil and plenty of water, but good drainage is very important. Prune back by one-fifth each year after fruiting.
• Although avocados need excellent drainage, they hate their roots drying out. Water regularly during spring and summer, and spread a 4–8 inch (10–20 cm) layer of mulch over the root zone.
• Mangoes need a warm, dry winter and spring, followed by a hot summer with good rain. Some varieties include Alphonso, Bombay, Carrie, Choc’anon, Cushman, Florigon, Gold Nugget, Lancetilla and Zill.
• Pick mangoes as their skin turns from green to gold. They may feel hard but will continue to ripen.
• Mangoes are self-pollinating, but fruit set can be affected by rainy and windy conditions, cold weather below 50°F (10°C) and disease.
• Mangoes can grow up to 50 feet (15 m) tall. To keep the trees to a manageable size, train them into an open vase shape with multiple stems. Every year remove one or two of the larger limbs to encourage new wood.
• Mangoes are susceptible to anthracnose—a fungal disease that causes failure to set fruit and early fruit fall, as well as black spots on flowers, fruit and leaves. It is exacerbated by high humidity and rain. Treat with a registered fungicide.
