Fruit Trees for Garden

The first step in choosing your fruit trees are to determine your USDA zone and number of chilling hours in your area. Chill hours are the number of hours below 45℉ that your area that your area will have during the dormant season. You can find out your chill hours by contacting your master gardeners or local Agriculture extension. Once you know your chill hours then you can choose your fruit varieties. If you choose a variety that requires more chill hours than what your area has, you may not even get any fruits. On the other hand, if you choose a variety that requires 300 chill hours and you have 800 chill hours more than likely the trees going to break dormancy too early and then you are going to have either frost damage or the tree could die.

The exception is fig trees. They only need 100 chill hours but they are hardy down to -15℉ and if they get killed by the frost on the top, they will grow back from the roots next year. The challenge with figs is choosing a variety suited to the summer heat you get. For example, white Genoa figs do well in cool coastal areas. On the other hand, Flanders figs need a nice hot climate in order to produce the best flavor. Pay attention to where you’ll plant your tree with pointed shovel and water your tree with 30m garden hose, micro climates are important.

Another thing to consider is a pollinizer. Most apple trees, for example, require another apple tree planted within a 50 feet that blooms at the same time. If you don’t want to plant multiple fruit trees for pollination, consider a multi grafted fruit tree. Multi grafts are also fantastic solution for limited space. Another option is to plant three fruit trees in the same hole. Consider the space you have in your garden. Can you accommodate an 18-foot semi dwarf or a 40-foot standard tree? Or is a 10-foot dwarf tree more suitable for your space. Keep in mind that by pruning you can keep to tree to any height and espalier pruning takes up even less space. Speaking of pruning, we’ve got some good quality gardening tools to help you do your gardening.

There are different harvest times for different varieties of fruit trees so the question to ask is do you want your feet to ripen at the same time for preserving? Or do you want to stagger the harvest times for a constant supply fresh fruits. If you have diseases that are prevalent in your area, you can choose varieties that resist those diseases.

It is time to consider some special characteristics that you want. Are you going to harvest a good baking apple or a winter storage apples? Think about what you want and make a decision on what tree to plant. I hope this information on how to make the best decision.