Fruit Gardens

A well planned and maintained Fruit Garden can supply an abundance of fresh fruit throughout the summer. In addition to delicious food for snacks and meals, fruit trees provide shade and beauty to your landscaping. Fruit trees may offer a better return on effort than anything in the garden. Several trees, with different harvest times, can bring fruit to your table 8 months of the year.

Required care and maintenance, such as pruning and yard work beneath the tree, should be considered when choosing a tree size. Smaller fruit trees yield crops of manageable size and are much easier to spray, thin, prune, net, and harvest than large trees. Also, if trees are kept small, it's possible to plant a greater number of trees, thereby offering more varieties of fruit and a longer producing season.

Dwarf: Small trees for small spaces. Most dwarf trees begin bearing fruit in 3 to 5 years.

Semi-dwarf: Medium-sized trees which require a growing area of about 15' diameter. Very productive, this size tree will produce hundreds of fruit per season. Occassionally, fruit trees will take a year off and produce little or no fruit, especially after a season of heavy production.

Standard: Trees that can grow to 25 - 30', or taller if left unpruned. Most standard trees begin bearing in 3 to 5 years.

Ask your local nurseryman to show you the fruit garden tree varieties which perform best in your area. Many exotic varieties are tempting to use but the local varieties will produce best with the least effort. Make sure to discuss soil, location and pollination requirements for the trees you are considering.

If you are planting just a few trees in your fruit garden, extend the harvest by choosing varieties which will give you fruit for a longer time. Consider an early variety for summer harvesting, late summer variety for fall harvesting and winter variety. With three trees that have different harvest times you can enjoy your own fruit for up to 8 months of the year.

At Garden Supply Center, our goal is to provide useful information on what type of garden to create and how to make it successful, choosing plants for your garden, which gardening tools and equipment to use and how to care for your garden. Visit our Products page and browse the gardening tool, vegetable seeds, flower bulbs, herb seeds, garden tiller, compost bin, garden tractor, compost tumbler and other garden supply products that are available.