How to Easily Grow Apples, Complete Growing Guide

what's going on growers it's James  Prigioni coming to you live from jersey   today me and tuck are going to show you how  to grow apple trees in your own backyard   and we'll share some of the tips and tricks  we've learned over the last nine years   we'll also grab a huge apple  harvest along the way let's go for today's video me and tuck are going to be  doing things a little different in regards to the   how-to videos i'm going to be involving more of  my own personal experience for this video because   like i said i've been growing apple trees for like  almost 10 years now i've grown them every way from   seed like we have right here the prisionee apple  i planted this thing from seed maybe seven eight   years ago and it's done well i have transplanted  pots apple trees that i got in pots you know   varieties just from places like home depot or  lowe's i've grown them that way and i've also   got bare root ones so i've essentially grown apple  trees almost every way that you can do it first   off let's get the basics out of the way apple  trees grow best in zones four to nine and one   thing you really need to think about when it comes  to apple trees is they do need another pollinator   so when you're ordering trees you want to make  sure you're at least getting two trees or you're   going to need to get a tree that's a multi-grafted  one different varieties that will pollinate one   another another thing about apple trees like  almost all other fruit trees is they like good   well-drained soil because they do not like sitting  in standing water no fruit trees really like that   with the basics aside let's get into the meat of  things so when it comes to growing apple trees in   my opinion the first most important thing you need  to take into recognition and to make sure you do   is to get a good variety and plant that the first  time so you need a variety that's going to do good   in your particular circumstance every circumstance  is a little different but a good place to start is   a good disease resistant variety something like  this right here here's the williams pride apple   you can see how beautiful these apples are and  we've got large production from this tree and   just on just a four year old tree this is a great  variety because it has good disease resistance and   it's also an early uh ripening one so we have some  apples right here on the ground this fell on its   own it's nice and ready and ripe as you can see a  beautiful apple right here so this thing is ready   in august when some apples are ready in september  some in october so because it ripens earlier   the apples seem to you know have to be only on the  tree for a shorter period of time which i think   makes it so it's easier to kind of get the  harvest especially when it's disease resistant too   another variety that's excellent you can get into  the ground is the liberty apple that's said to be   the most disease resistant apple on the planet  so starting off with the right variety the first   time will make a world of difference a huge  difference i made this mistake when i first   started let me bring you to a tree a tree that i  got in like seven or eight years ago that's not   even doing well i got the wrong tree in and i paid  for it now let's go back to a tree that i planted   like seven or eight maybe nine years ago this is a  golden delicious apple this is one that i got from   lowe's and it was a potted tree so not a good  variety that i really researched or anything   not a good healthy tree it was like a potted  tree it was root bound so this is a perfect   example of how you don't want to do it the way  i did things in the new food forest where i'm   getting way better production how i'm getting huge  apple harvest on just four year old apples this is   how i did it so what i did was i ordered bare root  dwarf trees from good reputable companies that's   super important you need to make sure you get it  from a good company and that you research what   variety you're getting because this is the tree  that's going to be in there for such a long time   and you're going to put into it that monetary  investment so you want to make sure you're getting   the most out of it what you don't want to do is  like what i have over here is order trees from a   company that isn't that reputable because i  ordered this tree from a you know a company   again that that i didn't know much about and they  this was supposed to be a katy apricot tree they   sent me a santa rosa plum and this tree is  it's not what i wanted if i wanted to sand   there was a plum i could have just gotten one from  lowe's so i wasted my time and my money because   i didn't even realize that it was a plum until  a few years after so this was a complete waste   one company that i like to use a lot is rain  tree nursery that's one that i have found to be   you know pretty consistent so i've gotten  a good amount of trees from that place   after you've decided what varieties you want  you've chosen your trees you've ordered them and   they've come in the spring that's when i suggest  most new gardeners plant their trees in the spring   i suggest you prep that fall before and then plant  the tree in the early spring what you want to do   is get that bare root tree in as early as you  possibly can as soon as the ground can be worked   so once the ground can be worked we want to dig  that section out we want to space our dwarf fruit   juice about 10 to 15 feet apart when it comes to  the apples we want to dig into the soil and we   want to make sure that we're not burying the graft  union because this is uh you know a regular tree   grafted onto a dwarf rootstock so when you come  down here you'll notice the rootstock down here   you want to make sure that you're not burying  that graft union if you do then the tree can root   from the top part and then it won't be a dwarf  tree anymore that's not what you want so that's   important when planting after you have that tree  planted you want to make sure you come around and   put a thick mulch around it i suggest wood chips  they seem to work the best in my opinion because   young fruit trees one of the biggest things that  can hold them back is if they have to compete with   weeds and grass grass growing under a young fruit  tree will greatly hinder its growth and overall   production because it just takes so much from  that tree so make sure you get that mulch down   then you want to make sure you water that tree  in and for the next three months or so come by   and just give that tree some water it's the first  year that it's setting in so just baby it along a   little bit apple trees and pear trees like growing  with a central leader when it comes to pruning   while trees like plums and peaches like growing to  an open center i'll show you an example of an open   center tree after this here is a williams pride  this is growing to one central leader as you'll   notice this main stem starts from the bottom and  goes all the way to the top as just one central   stem this is growing like this because when we  first put the tree in we pruned it to grow like   this and then staked it and kind of encouraged  that tree to grow up the one stem because this   is the shape the tree kind of naturally wants to  grow in and this is the shape where it'll you know   provide the highest level of production so that's  why we wanted to encourage it to grow like that   as opposed to a peach tree which i'll take you to  right over here this tree likes naturally growing   to more of an open center so when we planted this  street we encouraged it to do to grow to that you   know shape when you do this you're really uh you  know guiding the trees along and saving some time   and getting yourself quicker to production not  wasting growth on branches that are going to be   taken out later so you'll notice right here when  i first planted this tree we cut that this was   the center leader we cut it out and encouraged it  to grow into this open center so making sure that   you're pruning the trees correctly will help  you to get uh earlier and better fruit when   it comes to fertilizing your apple trees what i  like to do is i like to come out in the spring   and i'll pull back some of these wood chips  like right here i'll pull back the wood chips   and then i'll just put compost all around the  base of the tree then after i do that i'll put   wood chips back around you know around the base of  the tree i like to do this in the spring i don't   want to do this in the late fall because if we  fertilize too late in the fall then we could try   to like encourage that tree to grow a lot and  then some of that growth could die off in the   in the um in the winter so that's not what we want  we want the tree to blow up and explosive growth   in the spring that's really what we want now it's  time to get into some first-hand issues that i've   had with apples and i want to talk about some of  the things that i did to resolve the issues so one   of the first main problems that i had with apples  and a bunch of my fruit trees was that i wasn't   getting good pollination and the re i thought that  the reason i wasn't getting good pollination was   because i didn't have enough good pollinators at  first then when i added some more trees i thought   well this can't be the issue because i have  enough pollinators but i still wasn't getting   good pollination after that i thought maybe  that some of these uh you know blossoms were   getting killed off by a late frost so that's what  i chalked it up to because some days i would come   out and the flowers would all be like crumbled up  and dead and i couldn't really find out what the   issue was after a few years it took longer than it  should have but i finally realized that my issue   was that my flowers were getting brown rot on them  so essentially my flowers were getting brown rot   and then they were dying off because of that rot  before the bees could come and pollinate them so   that's basically what was happening to deal with  this issue what i did was you know not something   that i wanted to do but something i had to do to  make sure that i could ensure a harvest i used a   sulfur spray a micronized sulfur spray just in the  spring i came out and sprayed some of the flowers   before they were uh you know infected by that  brown rot and what this did was you know it   kept the brown rod from coming to those uh to  those flowers and allow the time for the bees   to come in and pollinate them when i sprayed  the sulfur dust it's right here i'll grab it   when i spray this i made sure to spray it only at  night when there were no bees around because this   is not good for the beneficial insects it's  something i felt like i had to do though in   order to get fruit and i want to share this with  you because i want to equip you with some of the   tools that you know in order to get apples it's  not 100 you know completely natural like it would   be in nature but it's still definitely organic  and this has helped me immensely the next big   issue that i had when growing apples had to do  with the pests in particular the plum curculio   which has devastated my garden and my fruit trees  are had for years but i feel like i really have a   hang on it now and a lot of the other pests too so  that's why i want to share this with you hey tuck   you want a cucumber boy no one boy let's see uh  if he wants a fresh cuke grab one here for him and   i'll talk about it more as he's snacking on one  because i saw him run around looking for something   because we just have so many cucumbers here one  boy so we'll let him go do his own thing but my   issue was with the plum perculo mainly the reason  they were so devastating is because what they do   is they come in they cut into the fruit and they  lay their eggs in the inside they can do it with   hundreds of fruit just one cuculio too so the  way that i actually resolved this was i used   something called surround kaolin clay and this  is important they actually get the surround one   because it's a super super fine particle of kaolin  clay and they make this with a magnetic centrifuge   to make it super super fine and this is the  stuff you need you don't want to use just regular   kaolin clay because it won't work this acts as  a protectant on the fruit so you basically spray   it on the fruit when it's young and then the  bugs don't want to come for it it kind of like   you know it protects it basically it doesn't  um you know hurt the bugs but it deters them   from going for it what's super super important  with apples is that you start this spray the   kale and clay right after petal fall when  the fruit is very small because when the   fruit's tiny you have to make sure you have a good  covering on them because one plum curculio insect   could hit so many apples when they're small  like that so if you stay on top of one small   and consistently spray that's going to form an  incredible you know protecting layer this kale   and clay also helps with things like sunburn too  so it's got multiple functions and uses another   thing that's great about it too is if you're  going to use the sulfur spray you could mix   the sulfur with the kaolin clay and it actually  helps the sulfur spray work better because it   i think it helps it like contact and stay on the  tree better so that kaolin clay works incredible   it's helped me with so many insects it even  helps with things like cucumber beetles too   another thing that i started doing which made a  huge difference regarding the health of the fruit   trees keeping away the pest and disease was i went  around and i raked up all the pits in the fallen   fruit from previous years and now anything that  falls to the ground any fruit or anything diseased   i pick that up and i either throw it in the  garbage or i burn it i get it off the property   one of my big problems was in the past the plum  peculiar were laying their eggs in the fruit   a fruit like this or even smaller would fall  to the ground then the plum peculiar that was   inside it would hatch and the next generation  would grow and then infect my other fruit so i   was essentially reseeding the plum per kilo in my  own garden creating the perfect environment for   them to thrive so i was creating my own problems  after i learned this or removed a lot of the fruit   the you know the second generation of plum curcuto  hasn't shown up as much and it's made a huge   difference so you want your garden to be tidy not  super neat because it has to be a little natural   but you want it to be tidy picking up any fallen  or diseased fruit removing any diseased branches   or leaves and getting them off the property  after i dealt with the issues of bad pollination   bugs and disease and insects i cleared a lot of  that stuff up i was still having one issue my   issue was that i was getting a lot of fruit on my  trees i mean these things were absolutely loaded   but the fruit wasn't really ripening and there  was so much of it it wasn't very good high quality   my issue was that i was being way too greedy the  thing that opened my eyes was when i had a chijiro   pear tree a young pear tree and it probably had  about a month or two before it was ripe and i left   so many pairs on it that the branch just snapped  in half it cracked i lost all the fruit that was   on it because i tried to get so much after that  i said i'm going to start thinning this year in   the last year i've been thinning more than ever  and look at the result look at the size of some   of this fruit as opposed to getting tiny little  apples i'm getting these big monstrous apples   like this here's the williams pride we're just  going to twist it let this thing come right off   and look how ripe and ready  it is look at the size of it   so when you fin you can allow the fruit you know  the tree instead of focusing on 500 fruit it can   focus on 25 30 50 fruit and make those big and  healthy and just incredible it just makes sense   it's like if you're a parent or something imagine  trying to raise like five kids as opposed to   trying to raise 150 kids at once it just won't  happen you can't put your focus on what's best   so when you thin these trees you kind of  um refocus the tree to put everything into   those few fruit to focus on those and to make  those as high quality and delicious as possible   let's crack into one of these though and see how  it actually tastes and you'll notice it's a little   whiter than some of the stuff you'll see in the  stores that's just like the natural uh you know   uh bacteria and stuff that come on the on a fruit  you don't see this in the stores because you can't   get in this fresh you can't get them this ripe  the there's an apple on the ground right here   this thing fell on its own to the ground so  there's no way you could get it and store   this ripe it's just when a chip is good so when  you grow the stuff yourself you can actually eat   them ripe you can grow the varieties you want  they can be organic you can know that and you   can get all the benefits that come from it  so i mean in my opinion it's beautiful let's   shine this one up though this thing might  look even better let's shine this apple up   and see what it looks like so we're going to  take this rub it in our shirt a little bit and then see how much it shines man that's  absolutely beautiful so apples are ready to   harvest the really the thing that i'll tell you  when the harvest is the taste when you order the   tree though the company should give you an idea of  about when their harvest ready to harvest so like   the williams pride it says it's ready in about  august time and when it comes to early ripening   apples like this one you'll know they're starting  to get ripe when the first ones start to fall from   the tree because the early ripening apples they  ripen over a lot longer period of time than the   late ones so the early ones will ripen over like  a three week period of time some already earlier   some a little later while some of your late apples  they could all ripen on the same day so having the   early apples is really fun because it extends that  harvest and it kind of lets you let the apples   trickle in a little bit instead of coming all  at once let's finally bite into this baby though incredible flavor no starchiness that's one  way you know it's ripe when it doesn't have   any starchiness in it the thing again that will  identify when an apple is ready is the taste   nothing better than fresh apples from your own  backyard now i want to harvest the apples from   this tree and here's some apples that have just  fallen from the ground the last couple days i want   to show you all this because this is what you can  have from one tree in just four years it's it's   possible i think everyone should be getting these  into the ground i want to harvest all these apples   and show you them but look at this one over here  look how incredibly ripe and perfect this thing is i'm going to cut this baby  right out man look at that beautiful not every apple is perfect a lot of them  have little marks on them and stuff like you know   this has a mark on it in here some of these have  some marks they're not 100 perfect but they're   great for eating they're delicious and it's also  another little indication that they're actually   organic because they have some bug bites  so we're going to harvest all these apples   i'm going to show you how  much we have in the bucket and then we're going to bring them inside start  eating them because we've been eating some   already as many as we can kind of as they  fall and stuff but now we're gonna have a   a bunch of them here look at that apple  that thing is massive too the size beautiful   i feel so blessed and thankful let me just get the ladder right here because some  of these are up a little higher grab this one here grab this one here  and then i'll come back to you uh   when we have everything all harvested that's  today's video guys thanks for watching i hope   you enjoyed it i hope you got something out of it  i hope me and tuck encourage you to get out there   and to get some apple trees into the ground and  i hope we equip you with some maybe some tools   and some skills and a little bit of knowledge to  be able to successfully grow apples and eat them   right from your own backyard like right here  look at this harvest from a four-year-old tree   that's just one tree right there we have a lot  more apple trees coming so this is an incredible   amount of high quality super nutrient dense  organic can't beat it food in my opinion this   stuff is absolutely priceless the reason it is  because you can't buy this in the store you can't   get this ripe this organic this local there's  just no way to do it unless you do it yourself   so that's why me and tuck make these videos  we want you guys to be growing yourself too   before i let you go i wanted to thank one of the  new channel members tobias malo i hope i said your   last name right but thanks for contributing to the  channel it means a lot to me and talk to know that   you know that you're putting out for it and we  want to thank you for that i also want to thank   everyone who's giving the new super super thanks  and contributing to the channel that means a lot   to us too and you know anything that we get from  you guys we're just going to reinvest it back into   the garden and into growing more delicious apples  so we just wanted to thank you for everything we   also want to let you know to hit the like  button hit the subscribe button share with   your friends don't forget to check out the merch  down low and remember whenever you're on amazon   start your shopping with our amazon affiliate link  talking james we'll be back again real soon we out

Channel: The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni

Views: 574,193

Keywords: how to grow apples, how to grow an apple tree, how to, how to apples, how to garden, how to gardening, apple tree, apple tree harvest, apple harvest, organic apple havest, williams pride apple, liberty apple, gardening, organic gardening, James prigioni, epic gardening, garden answer

Id: OwnUtnksO10

Length: 18min 34sec (1114 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021