Your Trees are FAT! Thinning Fruit on Your Trees for Better Fruit 🍎🍒

On this episode of the Busy Gardener, I walk through how to thin fruit on your trees for better fruit. Caring for your fruit trees includes taking off excess fruit, which is called "thinning". Thinning fruit trees will create larger, juicier, more tasty fruit, while supporting your tree's health. Leaving too much fruit on your tree can lead to broken branches, alternate bearing, depleted tree, etc. In this video I walk through how to thin stone fruit and pome fruit (thinning apple, thinning peach, thinning nectarines, etc.). Get to it! **GEAR I USE & RECOMMEND BELOW**
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[@IVOrganic]

Awesome Gardening Lesson! Truly love your fruit orchard!!! Your newest subscriber!!! Charles :-)

[@TheBusyGardener]

Thanks for the sub and kind words, Charles! As I'm sure it is for you, it's rewarding to see these plants thrive and produce!

[@cryptoyaqui6812]

Best video on thinning fruit. Thank you!

[@TheBusyGardener]

Wow, thanks Crypto! Now get thinning!

[@jessyd8809]

Yes I let the fruit on floor fertilize dirt that works 👌

[@bonniehoke-scedrov4906]

Another wonderful video - thanks!

[@TheBusyGardener]

+Bonnie Hoke-Scedrov Thanks, Bonnie!

[@nmnate]

Congrats on 2k! It's amazing how early your season starts in SoCal. We're still a couple weeks away from our last frost and some trees are pretty awake and blooming / leafing out. Others are entirely dormant still.

[@TheBusyGardener]

Thanks, NM Nate! When I last looked, every tree had broken dormancy (even our Honey Crisp apple). I guess we're giving the rest of the US a sneak peak, eh?

[@jessyd8809]

Yes the fruit on floor makes fruit produce great peaches ❤️

[@jessyd8809]

This video is so helpful thank u 👌

[@TheBusyGardener]

Thanks for watching, Jessy!

[@cplbruiser8267]

You have just told me what i wanted to know. Thank you.

[@TheBusyGardener]

So glad it helped!

[@jessyd8809]

Wow my trees are about 25ft u are right it’s harder to pick👌

[@jessyd8809]

I have 14 fruit trees apple 🍏, red gala apples 🍎, peaches 🍑, plum , cherry my cherry is 3 yrs old nothing yet or plums also 3 years old

[@GrandmaSandy]

I.m a NEW SUBSCRIBED .

[@TheBusyGardener]

+Grandma Sandy thanks for joining up, Grandma!! :)

[@jessyd8809]

I have like 20 in clusters 👌thank you

[@jessyd8809]

I got hundreds on each branch 2 broke at truck 😢

[@sebbert152]

Any advice for trimming espalier apple trees? This is their first year flowering well... planted last spring

[@TheBusyGardener]

With espalier you're focusing more on maintaining form and desired shape against your structure. You want to favor leaving fruiting/flowering spurs in your pruning, since you'll have less branches available to fruit. What training shape/method are you using? Branches going laterally out to the sides along a wire?

[@sebbert152]

The Busy Gardener yes, they are following 3 vertical wires. Thanks for your thoughts!

[@PlanetaryAwareness]

It is actually OK to throw on the ground? It doesn't lead to pests coming in?

[@TheBusyGardener]

Hi PA! When the fruit is thinned it doesn't yet contain any of the yummy/fleshy fruit that critters love. They can be left or picked up. Ripe (or near ripe) fruit, on the other hand should be picked up as this sweet fruit will attract pests.

[@taililly2483]

I am a newbie gardener. Found & subscribed to your channel. Purchased a early elberta peach tree 3 weeks ago, it is still in the pot. Some of the leaves are turning yellow. I have not fertilizer it. Are my leaves turning yellow because i have not fertilized it or is it missing a certain mineral? If so,what do I need to fertilize it with? My other question is, what do i need to put in the planting hole When no plant it. Thanks.

[@TheBusyGardener]

Hi Tai, Thanks for tuning in! A couple thoughts: 1) Yellowing leaves can mean a bunch of things; here are just a few homeguides.sfgate.com/yellowing-peach-trees-45545.html 2) You don't need to add anything to the hole when planting, as you want the tree to expand into the native soil in search of nutrients as opposed to remaining in the hole you dug. It's appropriate to add some topical fertilizer to the soil after planting to have it start working its way into the soil. Good luck!

[@learntobloom8912]

My Santa Rosa plum, Anna Apple and Dorset Apple, did not set fruit this year. They didn’t even flower 😢. We did have a warm winter in Houston-several plants survived the winter that usually don’t. Do you think they didn’t flower because of weather or just still too young? Or is there something I should do to get them to flower next spring 2020? Planted January 2018 Both apples flowered last spring and I pulled off 4 baby Anna apples-which was hard. Plum has never flowered, but it looks healthier (more leaves) this year. It’s hard to be patient 😬

[@denko44]

Could be chill hour issue, or over fertilization late in the season. If you do that, your tree will never enter proper dormancy, and will not set proper buds. For fertilizing, you want low nitrogen & high P +K. That will help with root development and more flowers. Apples fruit on third year growth, so that's something to consider. Don't over prune those. Plus they all need cross pollinators (even if it's a "self polinator")

[@TheBusyGardener]

Hi LTB! I know that disappointing feeling of shattered hopes when the tree doesn't produce, lol. They've essentially been in the ground for one and a half years and are still really young. Those cultivars are pretty tolerant of low chill hours, so just give it some time. As long as the rest of the tree looks healthy and happy, see what happens next season (but still feed the trees!) Thanks for tuning in!