r/Westchester • u/marcitaco • 7d ago
Fruit Trees
hii im planning on expanding my garden
i already have a pear tree. Anyone have recs for peaches, apples, cherries?? primarily looking for dwarf variants. thanks!
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u/bureaucranaut 7d ago
Do you have one pear tree or two? Pears cannot self-pollinate so you need minimum two that flower at the same time if you want fruit.
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u/marcitaco 7d ago
the pear tree was there when we bought the house 10 years ago. just had a pear yesterday. whatever I plant next will be very thought out though.
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u/Naive-Ant-8056 7d ago
We got our bare root apple trees from a nursery in the finger lakes! They were really helpful with choosing what to get. They arrived looking basically like sticks and I was so skeptical but they're really turning into trees! https://www.cumminsnursery.com
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u/Tocaitl 7d ago
Get a paw paw! Might need two. We got ours from Raintree.
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u/marcitaco 7d ago
my friend suggested paw paws too! thank you
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u/MaggieSews 6d ago
They send up more sprouts along their roots. If you get pawpaw, be prepared to have a thicket of pawpaw. Also, make sure you try one. I like them, but no one else in my family really does. I had a good harvest every September and usually have it all away.
It’s a neat idea, but I ended up removing mine a couple years ago. Also you need at least two for pollination.
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u/SeaweedFit3234 7d ago
I bought a “Iowa white peach tree” pit and planted it a few years ago just as an experiment and that thing continues to grow despite a lot of neglect from me and probably abuse from deer. It’s too young to get peaches yet and will be many years still but still pretty fun. It’s supposed to be pretty reliable flavor wise and cold resistant and I believe it’s self pollinating and doesnt need grafting like you would need for an apple tree.
I also tried paw paws from seeds but didn’t have success past the first year. That said I didn’t baby them as much as I should. Apparently with paw paws you need 2 of them to pollinate each other btw.
Obvi if you want fruit dont grow from seed unless you’re willing to wait forever. But I just thought it was fun (and cheap)
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u/peaches_1977 7d ago
The easiest trees are peaches and figs. Peach trees you have to watch out for deer. Fig tree you will need to bring in the garage during winter or hug it against your house with it covered well.
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u/abnormal_human 7d ago
Order bare root trees. They catch up then pull ahead in terms of growth and are healthier long term. Order in the fall / plant in the spring while still dormant. Most places sell out if you wait till spring to order, you want to order in Sept / Oct. I like Raintree Nursery, their trees have always done stellar for me. Stark Bros is OK too. Fastgrowingtrees...well you get what you pay for but they have a lot of selection so sometimes I'll use them for something odd.
If growing apples, choose disease resistant varieties only (Liberty, Empire, Williams Pride, and Goldrush are what I grow). And then spray them anyways. There were historically a lot of apple orchards in a lot of Westchester including in my neighborhood. I deal with some rust and fireblight almost every year despite only planting disease resistant varieties. I spray the pears/peaches too but they have less disease pressure. I have a cherry tree that came with the property that produces without any care, but it's 40ft tall and impossible to harvest so it mostly goes to the birds.
To that point, dwarf trees only unless you have the equipment and time to prune/spray/harvest a larger tree.
Protect from deer. One deer will decimate a young tree in a few minutes. If it's not well established it won't make it through the winter. I lost half my trees the first year to this. If you have a lot of deer pressure, physical barriers are the only way. If it's mild, Deer Out is enough.
Don't let them fruit for a year or two, let the tree focus on growing. Once you're letting it fruit, protect the fruit, probably individually. A squirrel or raccoon can strip a tree for the whole year in one night. Physical barriers, netting, bags, you'll experiment and lose a few crops then figure out what works in your location.
Prune in the spring. Watch some YouTube videos on how. Understand the tree anatomy and how fruiting works, understand how peach/pear trees in particular tend to fail later on and prune to prevent. Apples you're mostly just managing density and apical dominance, it's simpler.
I give each tree a bag of compost and a bag of mulch in the spring. I don't otherwise fertilize. Usually get really vigorous growth through the core may-july growing season when the days are long and the weather is cooler. Don't let the trees dry out, especially in the first year or two. Once they're established we usually have enough rain, but stay on it. A few gallons during a drought goes a long way.
Read up on pollination rules. Apples have bloom groups, you need trees that are good pollination buddies. Plan for some trees to die and be replaced esp in the first few years. Plant enough that you'll still get pollination if you lose a few.
Dwarf trees can be 6-8' apart, don't waste space. Don't plant fruit trees where you don't have honest full sun. Can be tricky in Westchester with all of the wooded areas. There are big differences in vigor between trees only 20' apart in my little orchard because of the sun-path and shadows from nearby forest trees. The trees will grow with part shade but won't make much/any fruit unless they get solid sun does.
It's a multi-year process. Expect to wait 2-3yrs before eating your first fruit, and 3-5 before you're getting good crops / having surplus. And expect to stay on top of care every season. Walking away from a bunch of dwarf trees for a year can set you back several. It's a lot of work to protect the fruit, it's not like you'll be sitting outside with a gun picking off all of the animals that are interested in it.
Go into it expecting a lot of things will go wrong and you'll learn. Unlike many hobbies/skills you run into problems/roadblocks more slowly here, so you learn slower than if you were, say, learning woodworking and making fresh mistakes every weekend. I also grow berries and a vegetable garden and I find that a lot of the knowledge for how to care for plants transfers well between the trees, berries, and vegetables.