Horticultural Year of an Apple Tree Grower

Deciding to start growing apples in a community-based orchard, yard or allotment is the start of a commitment to producing fruits that will brings fruity rewards each harvest from August to October.

Becoming an Apple Tree Grower

Every apple tree grower will have his own planning to do in choosing primary culinary or dessert apple cultivars, cross-pollination groups of apple cultivars or varieties for buying and planting multiple rows of apple trees, the apple tree rootstock and expected mature tree size and planting tree density for the orchard.

Pomology experts and fruit tree nurseries and garden centres will be able to offer regional advice for a prospective apple grower starting to plan setting trees in an apple orchard. Climate, soil conditions, location of orchard and budget for buying apple trees will all partially explain the vigor of the apple orchard once set up.

Before buying apple trees and becoming an apple tree grower, gardeners can take stock of the following horticultural year of an apple tree grower in a temperate climate. This offers a generalised timeline of seasonal essentials for setting up and growing an apple orchard. There will be regional differences in the seasons for growing apples in a temperate climate.

Horticultural Year of an Apple Tree Grower

An apple grower’s efforts with setting up and growing an apple orchard can be divided into five core activities:

1. November or late October is the time to buy apple trees for the orchard. Apple tree rootstocks can be planted out in soil in open yards, land, allotment or community-based orchards during the Fall to early Winter. Bare-rooted apple trees can be bought from online or mail order specialist fruit tree nurseries in October to arrive in November ready for planting. Once planted the apple trees will remain in a state of dormancy with the cold temperatures of the soil and microclimate.
2. March is a mulching and fertilising period to give the apple trees the best start to springtime blossom, cross-pollination and fertilisation before producing fruit later in the year.
3. Apple tree cultivars will produce fruits, if cross-pollination and fertilisation has been successful, in June. Depending on what apple trees were bought and planted in the orchard, the small fruits will appear on either the tips or the spurs. Spur bearer trees will have their fruits on the side-shoots along the main branches. Tip bearer trees will show fruit at the tips of branches. In June, any apple fruits that grow should be thinned to ensure good sized and best quality apples.
4. Early season harvest may begin in August to September as apple fruits pass the apple ripeness test. Apple harvest finishes in October and storage begins.
5. Once the harvesting and storage of apples is completed in October, formative pruning of the apple trees in the new orchard can begin and should be completed in November and before apple tree dormancy.

A Year in the Life of an Apple Grower

In a temperate climate, an apple orchard can be planted in November. Being a fruit grower brings the challenge of checking for common pests, improving the soil conditions and nutrition of the apple trees in springtime followed by thinning the fruits for growing quality apples in June and starting to harvest when apples are ripe. After a final harvest in October, shaping the apple orchard by pruning signals the start of another horticultural year as an apple grower.