Summer days are getting shorter, and shadows are getting longer. While vegetable and flower gardens are winding down, there are things left to do if you have fruit trees.
Maybe you have a peach tree, a couple of apple trees or a few pears. Depending on the fruit or varieties, your crop may be finished, or you are waiting for full ripening to occur. There are a few things you can do before your important winter chores.
Make sure you continue to keep you grass cut low. It competes for moisture and nutrients with your trees. Meadows and spent flower stalks in your garden can be left high for native bees and bird shelter, but bark gnawing mice, voles, moles, and rabbits are your enemy. Limit the places they can live and travel around your trees. Hawks will keep an eye out for them if the ground cover is kept low.
Dig through the garden shed for those tree trunk wraps. All trunk calipers can benefit, but small diameters are more prone to be girdled by hungry rodents. If you don’t have any, lengths of split corrugated drainpipe work well and are cheaper if you have a larger number of trees. Remember to remove them in the spring to keep insects from making homes in them and to avoid collar rot.
Then, there are those big orchard pests. August and September are the months when whitetail bucks start itching to get that antler velvet off… and your trees are potential scratching posts.
Also, in late September and into October they will fight imaginary foes while in the rut, all the while using your trees. If you have deer, staking some field fence around it might be a good option along with that tree wrap.
Pruning is usually performed in the dead of winter, but now may be the best time to remove dead branches. They are easier to spot because of the lack of leaves. It will also lessen your chore in January. Make sure you cut next to the branch collar for a proper removal and healing.
Disinfect blades between trees to help curtail the spread of disease. A 10% bleach solution (1 part bleach into 9 parts water) or a 70% alcohol will do the trick.
In anticipation of pruning season, now would be a good time to perform some tool maintenance. Clean off the sap and debris from all your garden tools and sharpen them for next season. This is a good time to put a shiny new edge on those loppers and pruners. Dress them with a fine file or a coarse whetstone before January’s orchard duty.
The question always arises which oil to use to prevent rust. Orchardists are fortunate to already have the perfect antioxidant, dormant oil.
Make sure you determine the causes for your dead branches. Diseased ones along with any mummified fruit should be burned or bagged and not chipped up for mulch. If you are in doubt, just bag it for the trash.
Now is the time for renewing your labels. You do have those original store labels, don’t you? Three pieces of information that will become important in the future are the age of the tree, the variety and the rootstock.
Most big box store trees are 2 years old, so add that to the year you planted it and mark it on your label.
If you only have a couple of trees, remembering the variety may not be an issue; but if you have dozens, you better write it down somewhere. We are all destined to get older; and with that, goes our memories.
Then there is the often-missed bit of information of which rootstock your variety was grafted to. Neary all fruit trees you buy are grafted. The reasons are for another story. Knowing which rootstock was used could help diagnose problems you may see later. It’s like knowing your family’s medical history.
Unfortunately, big box stores’ labels will only say standard, semi-dwarf or dwarf. It then becomes incumbent on you to do some research. Don’t hesitate to call or write the company.
With In-person and online purchases you will notice that the information is hit or miss, but at least you have someone you can “talk” to.
The rootstock will tell you the expected height, crop size, soil tolerance and disease resistance. Failure to thrive, even down the road, can be linked to that information, which then, may help you avoid future problems.
Now is a good time to go out and buy the sprays you’ll need for next year’s season. That dormant spray and all-purpose orchard spray will keep its potency for a long time. Remember, you should apply dormant oil once or twice during the winter. It smothers overwintering insects and eggs while it is wet.
Take time to walk the orchard. Look at your trees from many different angles before picking up those loppers in the winter. The leaves will be dropping, and you’ll see the structure more clearly. Maybe take some colored ribbon with you to mark the larger branches that finally need removal. You can always change your mind in February.
Look for those crossing branches, root suckers and water sprouts that need be pruned. Remember, suckers are not going to bear the variety you bought (again, it’s rootstock), and those sprouts will be weak limbed and not worth keeping, unless… you want to learn how to make your own tree, but that is another story.
Maybe you want to think about expansion if that is your dream. Bare trees look like they barely take up room. Trees still with leaves gives you a better idea just how much room you have left. It’s an orchardist optical illusion.
If you do have space and want to order more trees online, you’ll want to preorder your wish list early, because demand always outstrips supply. This seems to be especially true when you are talking about ordering scions for grafting.
The last chore for the fall and winter is education. This is true of all gardening. Read and expand your knowledge base. Do you know if your apples are spur bearing or tip bearing? It will make a difference in how you prune. Attend seminars and ask questions of trained, passionate people. Look for websites with .edu and .org domain extensions.
Land Grant universities such as Penn State Extension continually conduct research and have been the leading source of all things horticultural
And finally, take time to smell the Rosaceae Malus blossoms.
Here are some good resources:
• https://extension.psu.edu/home-orchard-calendar
• https://extension.psu.edu/pruning-apples-and-pears-in-home-fruit-plantings
• https://extension.psu.edu/home-fruit-table-1-2-monthly-maintenance
• https://yardandgarden.extension.iastate.edu/how-to/spray-schedule-home-apple-trees
More information on fruit trees and other fall garden chores is available at your local Penn State Extension office. Call 610-378-1327 or the email Garden Hotline at berksmg@psu.edu.
Stan Szczepanek is a Penn State Extension of Berks County Master Gardener.
Source: Berkshire mont
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