Fruit Trees for the Future: Start Your Orchard this Fall
By: Emma Rauschert
September is a GREAT time to plant a fruit tree in Illinois. Fruit trees take several years to bear fruit after being planted, so the sooner you plant the better!
Starting a home orchard begins with picking out a variety of trees and a suitable location to plant them. I recommend buying your fruit trees from a local nursery for the best quality and growing results. In Central Illinois, we can produce many kinds of fruit trees, such as apple, apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach, pear, mulberry, persimmon, pawpaw, and plum. When buying a fruit tree, be sure that the tree is hardy in your zone. The hardiness zone determines if the tree can survive the winter. Warren and Knox County are in zone 5b, and Mcdonough and Fulton County are in zone 6a. Some varieties of trees may do well in southern Illinois but not central Illinois, so be sure you buy a tree suited for your hardiness zone. Many trees need cross-pollination; I like to use that as my excuse to buy more fruit trees. Some trees are self-pollinated. Learning about cross-pollination and self-fruitful trees can be confusing, so I recommend planting at least two varieties within 300 feet of each other for the best results. If you want apples, plant two different varieties of apple trees; if you like cherries, plant two different varieties of cherry trees, and so on.
Choose a location for your fruit trees with well-drained soil that allows the roots to grow deeply. Be sure your location can accommodate the size of your mature tree and receives plenty of sunshine. Dig a hole for the tree twice as wide as the pot the tree is in. Take off the tree's pot, spread out the roots, and place it in the hole. Fill the soil back around the tree to ground level. I like to add fertilizer on top of the soil around the tree at this point. A dosage of 10-10-10 mixed fertilizer will be a good start. You can use water-soluble or sprinkle granular fertilizer around your tree. Water around the tree's base so the soil settles in and the tree's root ball is saturated. After watering, plain shredded hardwood mulch should be applied 6 inches deep around the tree's base. Make a donut-shaped mulch ring around the tree, not a volcano shape. Mulching around your fruit tree has a lot of benefits, such as keeping weeds down and moisture in. Putting stakes around your trees for a couple of years is also good practice to keep the tree growing straight.
The big thing you need to know about planting fruit trees is that they need a LOT of water. This is where most people misstep when gardening: they do not set up a watering schedule whenever planting something new. Most plants must be watered repeatedly for a couple of weeks after planting until their roots can spread into the ground to reach water. When you plant a tree with about a one or two-gallon root spread, it will take a long time for all the roots to grow into the soil to bring up water. Water your newly planted fruit trees every other day for two weeks with approximately 5 gallons, even if it rains. If it rains 5 inches, you can get away without watering for a few days.
The hard part about planting fruit trees is the bugs, diseases, and critters that like to nibble or rub on the tree. Fruit trees are usually the favorites of humans and other insects, fungi, and critters. How can you keep all the fruit for yourself and look perfect? Using insecticides, pesticides, fungicides, or other "icides" can work. However, I have yet to use any on my fruit trees. I had a terrible problem with Japanese beetles this past summer, but they oddly only ate leaves from one tree. I recommend setting your expectations low for your fruits' appearance. Your produce may not look like store-bought produce, and that is fine. It is still edible and will have a much better taste than store-bought. Use tree guards around the tree's trunk to deter deer and rabbits. If you notice your tree does have a disease, with phones nowadays, you can take a picture, and it may be able to identify what kind of disease your tree has; the same thing with specific insects. I love using the phone app- "PictureThis." If you use "icides" on your trees, do NOT spray insecticides on blooms. You will kill your precious pollinators.
Fruit trees require occasional pruning. I like to do a thorough pruning in mid-February on a nice day when the tree is dormant. I may prune again in midsummer when I can see how the leaves and fruits are growing. Every kind of fruit tree needs to be pruned differently. The general pruning rules are the same for all types of fruit trees. Start with a good pair of garden pruners. Cut off all the dead and broken branches first. Prune away any diseased parts of branches or whole branches. Remove any shoots coming up from around the base of the tree. Remove any branches growing towards or rubbing against one another and any branches touching the ground. Pruning aims to train the tree to develop into a specific shape and eliminate branches that may promote disease or rot. Pruning also increases production by removing branches the tree may devote its time to instead of producing fruit. Look for the photos to see some visuals on proper pruning.
I hope this article inspires you to plant a fruit tree this fall. There is a lot of information I am still learning on the care and well-being of fruit trees. I started a home orchard in the spring of 2023, and what a joy it has been to watch them bloom and grow. I have even harvested fruit from them already. What a resource to have! And the taste!! Out of this world, unbelievably fresh. I love it! After planting, I couldn't believe more people didn't plant fruit trees. I wondered why we don't plant fruit trees in city parks and home landscaping. Why do we have community gardens but not community orchards? Why don't we give fruit trees as graduation gifts, wedding gifts, baby shower gifts, you name it! I love everything about watching fruit trees grow. I love seeing bees visiting the blooms. Some things in life are just God's greatest blessings; one of them is a fruit tree.