A Beginner’s Guide to Growing a Healthy Fruit Tree

Caring for a fruit tree involves much more than just providing basic care. In the initial stages of the tree’s life, it’s crucial to understand how to care for your tree to ensure its immediate success and future health.

Supporting Your Tree’s Growth

In the early years of your tree’s life, its roots, trunk, and branches haven’t yet developed to a self-supporting strength. If your tree is bearing fruit, sometimes the combined weight is enough to snap off an entire branch. In such cases, you should provide external support for your branches—prop them up with boards or tie them to something at a higher altitude. As long as you provide your tree the support it needs in these early years, it should grow to be independent in no time.

Proper Nutrition

Proper nutrition is crucial not only for the production of healthy fruits but also for the tree to survive beyond one season. The exact specifications vary with the area, climate, and type of tree, but there’s no better source than a nursery employee. Inform them about the conditions your tree is living in and how healthy it looks, and they should help you find something to improve the state of your tree.

Watering Your Tree

Many people think that the only way to ensure a tree’s health is to provide it with an insane amount of water. This is not the case at all. In fact, giving too much water to a tree can be more harmful than letting it go thirsty. At best, it will negatively affect the taste of the fruit. At worst, your entire tree could die, preventing you from ever growing fruit in the future.

Removing Unhealthy Branches

If it’s too late and you’re already seeing unhealthy branches that look diseased or damaged, you should remove them. If the tree is wasting nutrients by sending them to a branch that cannot be saved, it’s essentially throwing away all the nutrients that could be used on the healthier branches.

Picking Fruits

Once your tree has started to enter the picking stage, never leave any fruit on the ground that is bound to fall. Also, be sure to get every piece off the tree. Even if it’s an ugly-looking fruit that you don’t want to keep, you should still pick it and throw it away.

Long-Term Care

Caring for a fruit tree throughout its life can be daunting. It may seem impossible at times to keep track of all the factors that make a tree healthy. But if you pay attention to the nutrients your tree needs, you should be on the right path. In addition to nutrients, figure out the precise amount of watering required to keep your tree’s thirst quenched without drowning it. Do all these things, and you’ll have a great tree that produces delicious fruits.