Fruit Trees

I am really new to the whole gardening experience so please bear with me. I moved into a new home in May that has a pear tree, apple tree and peach tree. The peach tree only had leaves on the top 2/3 of the tree with bear lower branches. The apple tree is full of leaves and so is the pear tree. When do these trees produce fruit?? I am not expecting any of them to be edible (not even expecting any fruit from the Peach tree)...I just don't have a clue when they are to produce anything. In fact I know nothing about fruit trees and need to learn about spraying and over all care for fruit trees. These trees have been neglected for over a year so their over all health is questionable. What can I do the insure the possiblity of having edible fruit from them? And When are they suppose to produce their fruit? Thanks!

Reply to
GoldLexus2000
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I live in Portland, Oregon. When we looked at the house a year ago (we bought my best friends house) the trees had peaches and pears, don't remember if there were any apples. Anyway, our friends weren't living in the house a year ago so any fruit that grew were never picked or picked up off the ground which may have made the trees vulnerable to all sorts of stuff. I guess I will need to head to the nursery and find out how to get these trees to the glory they should be. Boy, I feel so clueless right now.

Reply to
GoldLexus2000

If you can't see fruit on the trees (or on the ground) now, you're pretty much done for this year. Apples are, I believe, the latest of the fruits you mention to become ripe for harvest. I would, indeed, seek expert advice from a garden center or Your Local Extension Agent as to measures you can take to keep these trees healthy and productive. I hope Pam will join this thread and provide some expert advice for you. Can you ask your best friend something about the history and care of the trees?

Reply to
Frogleg

Okay, I was out today taking a good hard look at my trees to see if I can see any fruit or prospect of any fruit. I couldn't see anything, than looked on the ground and found an apple! Only one apple. I brought it inside and cut it open and no worms either! Can I expect to get more apples later? If one apple is worm free will they all be? Being as I don't know if they have ever been treated with anything will they be okay to eat? When looking at the Pear tree I can see long leaf like things on it but not leaf shaped. Are they future Pears? I have no clue what a pear looks like in the really early stage. As far as the Peach tree well it is obvious that it is sick. No peaches, no leaves on the lower 1/3 of the tree. I will be heading to the nursery sometime next week. I want to have some good fruit next year from these and hoping the Peach tree isn't too sick.

Reply to
GoldLexus2000

Ok.. this is roughly how fruit trees work.

In the spring the trees will be covered with flowers. If all the conditions are right in a few weeks you will start to see little tiny fruit where the flowers were. There's no mistaking that fruit is coming.

If you found one apple on the ground I'd suspect that's the only one you were going to get this year... maybe animals ate the rest? Or wind blew the "baby" fruit off before they got very big. Or maybe there weren't any insects to pollinate the flowers? Maybe they were cross-pollinating trees and you needed more than one of each kind of tree to get fruit? Lot's of things can go wrong.

You'll do much better next spring. Do lot's of research about fruit trees. Good luck, Laura B.

Reply to
Thalocean2

Having several fruit trees in my yard, I may be able to offer some advice. Your fruit is done for the year. Apples and pears are the last fruits to ripen. For now, water the trees well since they were neglected for so long, they are probably verry stressed. Continue to water every three days for an hour each ( by sprinkler, that is). Next, you need a couple of good books on pruning and care of fruit trees. See if you can take an extension course on pruning from your local college. Some people like to prune in the late fall ( end of October in your area), but I recently took a mini horticulture course that stressed pruning in the very early spring ( late February). At any rate, all major pruning should be done when the trees are in their dormant stage and the sap is not running. That stage happens during winter. Trees begin dormancy when the really cold weather hits and resume running sap when spring begins. Some minor pruning is done in late summer to remove watersprouts and trim off dead or diseased branches. Re spraying; I find it best to contact a yard care company and ask them about their rates and schedules of spraying and what they use. You can ask to have the last schedule of spray ommited, since you want to be able to eat the fruit without risk of poisoning from the sprays. The local garden center can give you a list of sprays and the times they should be applied as well as what they're for, although a good book on care of fruit trees should have that in them. However it may not be germane to your local regulations. I don't like the idea of having to use chemicals at all, but this year my bent towards no poisons and no chemicals has led to bad infestations of aphids, leaf miners, leaf rollres, coddling moth, and those horrible little worms that you find inside cherries, yuck ( shiver)! I lost most of my cherry crop, and all of my crabapple crop. Hope all this helps.

Reply to
J. Lane

Great info from all of you! Thanks so much. I will be going off to the nursery on Monday to pick their brains, find a good book and learn how to prune and spray. Would go today but most nurseries are pretty busy on the weekends and I want to try to get a little time from the person at the nursery. Hopefully, next season I will be reporting on all my good fruit! BTW I have never been much of a garden person, never lived where there was a nice garden and never knew how to go about planting one. We than moved into our new home with a beautiful garden and waterfall/pond. It was extremely neglected so did alot of clearing out. This year was I was only able to get the garden looking nice again. Plan on planting some bulbs, rhodies and some azeala (sp?) to fill in some bear sections. I never dreamed I would LOVE doing this stuff and learning all I can to have a great garden! Here is a link to some pics. I have of our yard

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you would like to see. Again thanks for all your advice!!

Reply to
GoldLexus2000

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