S4:E03 Fruit Trees & Small Fruits

Hello Listener,  

In this month's episode, we're talking about selecting and growing small fruits and fruit trees. With spring blooming around us, many garden centers and stores will have fruit trees and small fruit shrubs for sale. Creating a home orchard can provide a source of delicious fruit. However, fruit trees and shrubs have their own unique challenges.  In this month's episode,  we discuss tips for planning your orchard, growing small fruit (~11:05), tips for growing tree fruit (~27:53) and native fruits (~38:15). 

We also have our: 

•  Native Plant of the Month - Serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.) ~43:30
• Bug of the Month –  Plum Curculio ~47:30
• Garden Tips of the Month - ~52:38

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 The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Senior Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture, Rachel Rhodes- Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County), and Emily Zobel-Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).

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Transcript

Note: The Garden Thyme Podcast is produced for the ear and is designed to be heard. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.  

:Up beat music:

Rachel
Hello, listener. Welcome to the University of Maryland Extension presents the Garden Thyme Podcast, where we talk about getting down and dirty in your gardens. We're your host. I'm Rachel.

Mikaela

I'm Mikaela.

Emily

And I'm Emily.

Rachel

In this month's episode, we're talking about selecting and cultivating small fruits and fruit trees.

:Up beat music:

Mikaela

So I think before we even get started, a really good resource for you to utilize is your local extension. And I don't think we can say that enough because we have the Home and Garden Information Center website, which has hordes of pages about growing fruits, selecting fruit varieties, what their different qualities are. But each state probably has their own pages about the same topics, but they'll be more catered to your local growing conditions. So win in doubt, really just check out your local extension. And because fruit trees and small fruits are so popular, I think you will find a wealth of information.

Emily

That is a good point.

Rachel

Yes. So as many of us have learned over the past few years of growing our own food, it can be a really rewarding process. And with spring blooming all around us, many of our garden centers and stores are having fruit trees and small fruit shrubs for sale. Creating your own home orchard can provide the same sense of satisfaction and can provide a sustainable perennial source for delicious fruit. However, fruit trees and fruit shrubs have their own unique challenges and they require a fair amount of commitment and patience, but they can be very rewarding. And I often equate fruit trees to having a puppy.

Emily

Oh, that's a good analogy.

Rachel

That's very good because they need that constant care and reinforcement before you can get anything substantial from them. So puppies, you have to reiterate house training and leash walking and good manners. And fruit trees are kind of the same thing. You have to prune them, you have to water them, and you're going to be spraying them and monitoring them for diseases. And that all happens a good three years before you even get anything out of it. And it's kind of like a puppy. You have to do all of this upfront work before you can have the reward of a good dog. So that's kind of my logistics when I talk to people about having fruit trees or fruit shrubs.

Mikaela

Yeah, and I think you hit it right on the head. The garden stores and nurseries are going to be putting these items out front and they're going to catch your eye and you're going to get really excited or you're going to have your kids with you and they're going to be like, yes, I want to grow blueberries. I love blueberries. Let's get one. But hopefully you're listening to this podcast. You take our advice because there is a lot more that goes into it. Impulse purchase is not a good strategy for fruit trees or small fruits. Yeah, but we have some really good advice. I think today we've put our masterminds together and come up with some really good tips and good things to think about before you even go down this road of growing your own fruit trees.

Rachel

Yeah, and I did mention spraying, and I think it's really important to mention that even when you want to garden organically, there are a lot of preventative activities that are needed to produce a harvest and to keep a tree healthy. So we'll talk about those more in detail later. And they're going to include pruning bloom and fruit thinning and preventative sprays for diseases and insects. But we suggest that beginning gardeners or anyone short on time, try small fruit or berry cultivation for the first time, diving into the deep end of fruit trees. And small fruits are much simpler to grow, and they usually need little to no spraying, and they take up a lot less space. You can even grow some of them in containers. So they're a great starter into the gateway of fruit trees.

Emily

I think that's a good point.

Rachel

So when we talk about fruit trees, I think the most important thing, and it's something that I harp on probably every January, is planning. And proper planning prevents poor performance. And this is almost like the research that you would do for your new puppy, thinking about where you want to put a fruit tree. 99% of our fruits require full sun and well drained soil. Do you have that in your environment?

Emily

I think it's important to remember that when it comes to things like fruit trees and the small fruits, these are perennial crops. So most of your fruit trees, they're not going to start producing fruit for a few years in, but they're going to live 1015 years. So it's not like a tomato plant where it's going to die out. And if you put it in the wrong spot this year, it's, okay, I'm going to buy a new one or start a new one for next year. And while you can theoretically move these within a year or two of planting them, that's going to take it even longer for itself to establish to get fruit. So making this plan up front is really going to save you a headache in the long run.

Rachel

Yeah. I also think you need to think through your intent. So are you growing it for your own production? Are you growing it to have apples or pears or peaches to eat? Or are you growing them because you want to can them and do some type of food preservation? Or are you growing them for wildlife? I also think that you should think through the space. Fruit trees are going to be a perennial crop, so they're going to be in your landscape for ten to 20 years. Do you have the space for the growth of a fruit tree? And in that regard, do you need a dwarf variety in 20 years? Are you going to be able to prune that fruit tree to the tree's needs and still be able to do it because they require maintenance?

Emily

They do. I think a lot of times people get fruit trees and associate them more with vegetable production and forget that it is first and foremost a tree. So all the care that would go into picking a tree for your landscape really does need to be evaluated here as well. So fruit trees are almost a double hitter because it's all the same issues you'd have with picking out an ornamental tree along with all the issues you'd have from doing something that would be for food production as well, combined.

Rachel

Then the next step I like to think about is do I need multiple varieties of one type in order to have cross pollination? Can I get away with just having one apple tree or one peach tree or one pear tree? Or do I need to get three to five apple trees to have cross pollination so that we actually get a fruit? So that's something else that you need to kind of do your research on and we'll talk about it a little bit later. But just making sure that you have the space not only for one, but for multiple. And then if you really like it, do you have the space to plant more? And then how much time and dedication do you have to maintaining your stand of fruit trees? Do you have the time for pruning? Are you going to be relying on someone else to prune it? And do they have the education to prune a fruit tree? Do you have the time to spray? Do you have the knowledge of spraying fruit trees? Are you going to have to take additional classes to learn about spraying your fruit trees? And then are you going to put them on a trellis?

Rachel

Because some of our apple trees can be trellis, some of our small perennial fruit shrubs can be trellis. Do you have the space for that? Do you have the maintenance ability to maintain a trellis?

Mikaela

The word for it is espalier, and I believe that is French for a lot of work. I know it's not, but that's what it looks like to me. And it's easy when you go to visit Mount Vernon or Monticello to take a look at those gardens and get really excited and inspired by it. But remember, they have full time staff to take care of those professional gardeners and horticulturists to dedicate all their time to it.

Rachel

Exactly. And they're beautiful. I mean, once you do it, it's an absolutely beautiful method for your fruit trees. But like Mikayla said, do you have the time to maintain it in that method?

Emily

I think you hit a good point, Rachel, and that definitely an education curve here. I guess the good side is if you put it in and you're not going to get fruit for three years, you've got three years to learn and master it. But it is a commitment there.

Rachel

That's very true. I think that something we missed talking about in here is the placement of your fruit tree. We talked about kind of the site, but do you want your fruit tree in the front of your yard and five years later have rotted fruit dropping on your front yard? Because I think people think they want that, but then when European hornets come out in mid September or like mid August and they're like eating lots of your rotten fruit, you might not want that.

Mikaela

Yeah, some really good points. That's true with any tree that produces fruit, whether it's edible or not, is keeping it in like a mulched area or an area where you're okay with the fruit dropping and basically rotting away.

Emily

Yeah, it makes me think of black walnuts breaking ankles by walking through your.

Mikaela

Front yard on a black walnut. That's always so when we talk about people beginning with fruits, we generally recommend starting with something called small fruits. So when we say small fruits, we're referring to woody shrubs, vines, or smaller herbaceous plants that produce edible fruit. We have quite a few examples of what you might be interested in growing for the sake of not only a space. Because of course, small fruits implies that it's a lot smaller, more manageable than a tree, but also saves you a little bit of more time and maybe is a good way to kind of ease your way into fruit production. So some of the easier crops for a novice grower to start with include things like fig and the Home and Garden Information Center website has specific links for the types of fruit and how to prune them. But HDIC has a fig video on how to prune them. And that's really helpful, especially to have that kind of visual. But some of these other fruits we don't really think about growing but might be a little bit easier, are jujibi gooseberry. Currants are really an underutilized fruit tree in the environment, and elderberry, which is actually one of our native fruits.

Mikaela

So gooseberries and currants, they are a shrub that reaches a height of three to 6ft when they're mature. And unlike some of the other fruiting plants, they can actually tolerate some partial shade, so these might actually even make good hedges. Red currants and gooseberries are self fertile, so this means they can self pollinate with just one specimen, but they might produce more and larger fruit when you have more than one cultivar or more than one specimen. So basically, the more the merrier. So some black currants are also self sterile and they require another cultivar for fruit production. And this is where your research really is helpful because you want to know the variety that you're purchasing and whether that is self sustaining or whether you're going to need multiple other cultivars or individuals in order to have that cross pollination. Now, well established plants can actually fruit for ten to 15 years, which is really quite productive. That's really good. I don't know, off the top of my head. We might need to do some research real quick how long it takes for those plants to start producing fruits, because a lot of the woodier trees and shrubs, they require time to get established.

Mikaela

You're not going to get fruits in the first year, necessarily. In fact, you shouldn't, because you want all that plant's energy to go into growing good roots, healthy roots and good canopy or top system so that they can produce fruit in the future. And like most woody plants, we recommend planting in the fall to get the best chance of establishment when you plant in the spring, sometimes that's really hard on plants, especially if we have a droughty summer, you're going to be spending a lot of time giving them some TLC, extra water, all of that jazz.

Emily

So I know one of my favorite small fruits that I like to buy and I like to do the pick your owns that we have around here is blueberries. Not only do they provide great fruit, but they also have beautiful fall color, making them an excellent addition to your landscape. So if you were looking for something just to add some intrigue to your landscape, you could still potentially add these to your landscape. Because of that, we have both native species and a wide range of cultivated varieties. Blueberries can also be grown in containers. They are exclusively acid loving plants. You will definitely need to have your soil tested and likely will have to amend the soil to get it down between 4.5 and 5.5. You will also have to probably continuously modify that soil in order to make sure it stays in that range in order to keep your blueberries healthy and happy. So again, as much as we love blueberries, do not take this on unless you are ready to make that kind of commitment and have a good understanding of soil health. And because of that amendment need, you may need to take a year or so to amend that soil or keep your blueberries in, say, a container and then transplant them in later.

Emily

That being said, when we're talking about a container, we're talking about a large container. These need 10, 15, 20 gallons of soil in them.

Rachel

I think this is a really good segue for proper planning because this is absolutely not an impulse buy without doing a soil test first.

Emily

I've 100% impulse buy these and they are dead. They died.

Mikaela

And to expound on that, it may sound easy to just say, I'm going to amend the soil and make it more acidic. Well, sulfur requires time and warmth in order to incorporate into the soil and to actually change it to acidic. So it's not something you can just apply at the same time as planting your blueberries, especially if you're dropping it down from something high like seven or above. It might take a year, maybe even two, to drop it into the proper PH point. And this is if you're trying to get a good crop of blueberries. And in general, I just quick looked it up. Most fruits do the best between six and seven for PH, with the exception of apple, which can go slightly acidic, has a tolerance for that. And elderberry has a tolerance for alkaline soils, of all things. So, yeah, it's just important to keep in mind before you're investing in all because fruit trees are not cheap, right? Impulse buy. It might be, but they are not cheap.

Rachel

So in that regard, you're not going to plant your blueberries in the same area as your apples.

Mikaela

Exactly.

Rachel

So you really have to think about where you're going to place your fruit trees and fruit shrubs before you even put them in the ground.

Emily

I think it's good to remember that trying to amend once the plant's in the ground is also hard because you increase the likelihood of shocking that plant. And this is another thing when we say getting that soil test from a professional lab is going to be much more useful than buying the test kit at the big box store, because our soils have what we call a PH buffering capacity, which tells you how easier or hard it's going to be to change that PH. H, you're not going to get that from a big box store test. You're going to get something that's going to say, okay, my soil is blue, and if I hold it up to this color, I can say it's this PH. It's not going to tell you how to change that PH or anything like that versus a professional soil lab. If you send them a sample and say, this soil is going to be for blueberries, they are going to give you some directions on how to amend that soil.

Rachel

All right, so in addition to blueberries and our gooseberries and red currants, we also have blackberries and raspberries, and they are usually the obvious starter choice. They're widely cultivated and have a good variety for the home gardener. And there are even some thornless BlackBerry varieties that are on the market. But I really think that this thornless variety really doesn't have those character building capacity for our children to get their arms stripped with thorns.

Mikaela

I wrote that BlackBerry is okay. It is character building.

Rachel

Yeah, it truly is. Because they learn to wear long sleeves in the summer to harvest the blackberries because the thorns are so bad. And then they really appreciate that little tiny pint of blackberries that they get.

Mikaela

How are they going to learn survival skills if they can't barrel roll out of a shrub? That's got you by the agreed.

Rachel

100% agree.

Mikaela

Oh, my God. Ruthless.

Emily

I love it. Now you guys are loving parents who are trying to make sure that they are tough kids that can take the harshness of this world through their ability to harvest cane berries.

Mikaela

That's right. Yeah.

Rachel

So please keep in mind that these belong in the Bramble family so they're likely to spread and they need that space to roam. And since they have large arching branches or canes, you may want to develop a trellis system. And we have some really great guides on how to develop a trellis system on the home and garden information website that you can look up, you may want to research the maintenance and care of brambles. Raspberries in particular have two types of bearing fruit, the primocane bearing which means they develop fruits on current seasons growth and June bearing and that fruit ripens in the summer on second year cane growth. Most extension websites have a nice list of varieties that have performed well in that state and should be consulted for picking out the varieties that best fit your needs and growing conditions. When in doubt, trust your extension website and go with the recommended cultiverse that they have listed. Some common issues with our small fruit shrubs. Number one is going to be wildlife, so you're going to have to think through if you can find netting to go over it so that birds don't get into it or deer.

Emily

Bird netting is sort of the go to but you need to check it occasionally because birds will get caught in it and the last thing you want is dead song bird. 

Rachel

Agreed.

Emily

So just something to keep in mind when it comes to insect pests. Specifically, there are several that are very characteristic to each type of small fruit and you're going to have your traditional leaf feeder, so your traditional caterpillars, your Japanese beetles, your leaf feeding beetles and stuff. But additionally you're also going to have pests that feed directly on the fruit itself. As much as we all love those blackberries and are willing to push our small children through thorny branches to get them, insects can fly through the thorny branches and they can lay their eggs on those berries. So you get a lot of things like fruit maggots from like spotted linked safila and other flies. As well as you do have fruit worms which would be caterpillar larvae that are growing up feeding either inside that fruit or outside on that fruit. So just be note that there are some unique insect pests that you are going to have to deal with.

Rachel

You also have different things like downy mildew or gray mold or powdery mildew, cane blight. There's a whole list of things for our fruit trees and small shrubs that will be either fruit specific or plant specific. So knowing what to look for ahead of time is really important as well.

Emily

On that note, if you do that research ahead of time, you can oftentimes go into your variety selection and knowing like okay, I'm looking for something that has some resistance to downey mildew or powdery mildew or a virus. A lot of times some of the broader things to things like fruit rot, there's lots of funguses that will cause fruit rot. So you may not be able to get resistance to that. But some of these other ones, you can find varieties that have been bred for resistance. And it might be worth paying a little extra to get those, because it means it's a little less burden on you to try. To combat these diseases, which here in the mid Atlantic we know we have humidity and we have warmth and we are like a prefola of diseases in this area.

Mikaela

And I'm sorry to say, there's probably not one variety for any fruit that's resistant to everything, right? So you kind of have to do your due diligence and see what disease might be a prevalent or destructive issue in your area and then pick the variety that's the most resistant to that one disease, understanding that it might be susceptible to something else. And we talk a lot about the biotic, so the disease and fungal issues, but there's also abiotic or environmental issues to pay attention to as well, and sometimes those facilitate the movement of some of these other diseases we've mentioned. So late frost can be super detrimental. In fact, you can lose entire crops from a bad frost or a late frost, because if the blossoms are damaged, that means the fruit will either not form or it'll be deformed. But we're also talking about heat and sunburn, drought, stress, a lot of nutrient deficiencies, which sometimes you can remedy if you catch it fast enough. But I'll use blueberries as an example. You see cluorosis, which is when the leaf starts to turn different colors or there's yellowing. That's what we call clorosis. That might be a good sign or bad sign that your PH is not balanced well for the blueberry.

Mikaela

So it might be that it's too alkaline and that it's time for a soil test and or an application of sulfur.

Emily

Doing that research can really help make sure that you're successful with your small fruit, because ultimately we want you guys to be successful. It's really fun to grow small fruit. It's really fun to send your small child out and have them come back crying because they reach the thorny patch. But they're successful and they're smeared in all the berry juice. And it's great, it's amazing, but they just take a little bit more work.

Mikaela

I feel bad because this episode feels a little doom and gloom, but mostly Emily emily is right. We just want people to be successful. And we know we're trying to tell you our mistakes because undoubtedly each and every one of us has made one of these errors.

Emily

I've made all of these errors.

Mikaela

Yeah, exactly. I've done everything.

Emily

I have killed blueberries, I have killed blackberries, I've killed figs. I haven't tried trees yet because my backyard space already has all these trees. So I know I don't have the space for trees, but I have done the impulse buying and I'm telling you guys not to do what I'm doing, please.

Mikaela

Exactly.

Rachel

I impulse bought, like, five apple trees. Worst mistake.

Emily

Yeah.

Rachel

One, because I don't maintain them because I don't have the time or commitment for the needy. Apple tree.

Emily

Well, you've got two children.

Rachel

I bought them before I had kids.

Emily

Okay.

Mikaela

It was exciting.

Rachel

It was exciting when I bought them.

Mikaela

When we're talking about small fruits, we're about to talk about fruit trees, but we do have some vining fruits as well, and we often forget about them. But the two I'm going to highlight are herdy kiwi and grapes without fail. I usually have someone contact me about wanting to grow table grapes, which are different than wine grapes, and I just want to make it known that grapes have a slew of these and pest challenges. And in the Mid Atlantic, we have every single one of them. So I usually discourage homeowners from trying to grow them unless you have a solid management plan, including a pesticide spray schedule. And I say that because one application of pesticide is not going to be enough to keep the disease at bay for the entire growing season. Okay, so keep that in mind. You can grow grapes, and certainly there are varieties that do well or better in Maryland than others, but be prepared for the fact that grapes might not come to fruition or that they may look pretty gross because they got some kind of betritis or gray mold disease. But I will say if you're looking for something a little lower maintenance, hardy kiwi can be an option for people.

Mikaela

It's very vigorous, and it does have the potential to escape captivity, so it should be maintained properly. I have not seen it escape captivity, but Home and Garden Information Center website does have, like, a little note about it. But for hardy kiwis, you do require a male and a female vine, so you need a minimum of two, and both of these are going to produce a lot of growth, and so they're going to need a well, trellis support system. And while the male might be able to be pruned back a little bit harder than the female, you still need the flowers in order to have that pollination process. And of course, the males are not going to produce any fruits, so make sure wherever the female plant is located, the trellis is not over, like where you sit in the summer, or it's going to probably drop fruit eventually. And I believe hardy kiwis take, like, five to seven years, I think, to start producing fruits. It's quite a while. But if you're looking for a vine to use on a trellis system and you're interested in growing home fruits, that might be a nice option.

Mikaela

Anybody have good tips for growing fruit trees? I'm not a good one to ask.

Emily

Well, I would say take into consideration that fruit trees are going to be little bit harder than your vegetable crops. And we've mentioned this a few times. So if you're going to go into this, or if you've already impulsed bought your fruit trees and you getting them delivered and you've got them and you're putting them in the ground, here are some things that can help you be a little bit more successful. Making sure that you're putting them in that right place right off the bat can be really helpful.

Rachel

Always referencing the University of Maryland home and Garden information website for recommended cultivars, or if you're in Pennsylvania or Delaware, checking with your extension website too to see what their recommended cultivars are. That's really important before even planting.

Mikaela

And I think it's safe to say it's very rare that you're able to just take a fruit tree or shrub and put it in the existing soil. Some amendment probably has to be done, whether that's changing the PH, adding compost.

Rachel

Yeah. And it's understanding that you are not going to get fruit the first year. We recommend that for the first two years, if for some reason you're getting blooms or you're getting fruits, you want to take those off, just pluck them right off. Because the priority for this fruit tree is to establish a really good, healthy root system. And once the roots are developed in that third year, then you can allow fruiting to happen.

Emily

Ironically, most of our most popular fruits. So things like apples, pears, peaches, plums, and cherries are some of the hardest things to grow in our mid Atlantic area. This is not necessarily due to temperature constraints, but rather because we have a lot of disease and pest pressure here. These crops have been grown in the United States in our area for a long time, so they've had the ability to build up pest pressure. And again, our hot, humid summers just make particularly fungal diseases rather prevalent in the area. So some fruit trees that we would recommend for beginners, so if you're looking for something that's a little less maintenance, a little bit easier, would be something like the fig as well as sour cherries or tart cherries. Some of the Asian varieties of things like persimmon and pears would also require potentially fewer treatments or sprays because they don't quite have as long as a history here. But you are not going to be able to grow them completely pesticide free. There are options for organic pesticides. So for instance, using like a copper fungal cidal spray or Neem oil to combat scales would be options that you can do, but you're likely going to have to do those at least a few times a year in order to maintain tree health and get fruit.

Emily

And citrus trees, as much as we'd all love to have them, are not going to really withstand our winter here unless you have some ability to either grow them in a greenhouse or bring them indoors during the winter.

Rachel

So most fruit trees are. Propagated by grafting. And that means that the variety you want is joined to the root stock of a related variety for the purpose of improving its hardiness, disease resistance, and or dwarfing the plant's stature for the ease of maintenance and harvest. Terms like semidwarf, dwarf or miniature refer to the overall growth habit compared to a full size tree, not the fruit itself. Even though these are descriptive terms for the growth habit, you still have to prune them to maintain their size and the airflow throughout the tree. And then we really like to avoid the five in one grafting because they don't grow as well, and then sometimes they can revert back to the original variety.

Mikaela

So we mentioned this at least a couple of times, but you should know which varieties will need cross pollination to fruit. Well, as some will not produce fruit if planted alone. And it's kind of complicated because each is going to be a little bit different. It might be that they need more than just one individual and they can be the same variety, or it might be that they need different varieties, period and multiple specimens in order to get that good cross pollination. And not to make it more confusing, but I'm going to make it more confusing.

Emily

Please do make it more confusing. Michaela exactly.

Mikaela

Some varieties don't all bloom at the same time. So you want to get varieties that are sort of on the same bloom schedule. So an early bloom variety planted with a late blooming one might not get you the best fruit set. But the good news, because I love charts and so I just imagine everybody else loves charts. There's a lot of charts available out there, especially from extension, where you can kind of cross reference which varieties might do the best with another variety. And that makes it a little bit easier and it'll tell you which ones might not be compatible or if you'd be just fine picking one variety, whatever one you've decided does the best in your area. So self fruitful groups, so they're self pollinating. They don't necessarily need multiple varieties. This includes figs, peaches, nectarines and apricots. And there are a few varieties because there's always exceptions to the rule of apple, cherry, pear, persimmon and plum. So keep like with like when you can like I said, cross compatibility might not occur. So for instance, don't rely on pollination between an Asian and a European pair. So when we say stick with groups, sour cherries or tart cherries might not cross pollinate with sweet cherries.

Mikaela

So again, you want multiple specimens of like the same type. If you're choosing from a reputable source or nursery, they will definitely have these charts available. In fact, they might even reference them several times. So in other words, pollination is complicated. The more the merrier. And just do your research as to what varieties might need a friend.

Emily

I feel like they all need friends let's be honest, I need a friend. My apple tree needs a friend.

Mikaela

They all need friends and I don't think it hurts to have backups because I'll use this circumstance like blueberries. They do best when you have two different varieties. At the very least. Don't just buy one of each variety, at least get two in the circumstance that something happens to one of those individuals and then you're like left with just one stranded. I mean, I guess you can always buy more but it's always an investment. And so I like to say to each of two varieties for blueberries at the bare minimum. So you're going to have four plants to start with.

Rachel

Yeah, that's a great suggestion.

Mikaela

Many of our more commercial trees, fruit trees, are prone to fungal diseases. So you may have to not only do preventative spray of fungicides, but a maintenance fungicide spray schedule as well. And that's what we call it, we call it a spray schedule and that's when you're doing regular intervals of spraying, either a fungicide or a pesticide. And there are a lot of publications out there to help you with this, particularly because a lot of them are targeted more towards commercial production, not necessarily home. But Virginia Tech does have a home fruit, disease and insects publication. It's a little bit lengthy but honestly it has all the information you might need. So it really does help if you're being specific. Like you can look up a cherry spray schedule versus an apple spray schedule and it also goes through the different types of diseases or pests that you're going to run into and when you can expect to see them phonology wise. So we'll include those in the show notes but honestly, you can also just type in Virginia Tech Home Fruit, Disease and Insects publication. Now we've briefly touched upon pruning, but fruit trees should be pruned for several reasons.

Mikaela

This is to maintain a shape, a certain shape and keep that tree at a desired size because of course, if they get too big or unmanageable, that's difficult for you to harvest. It also allows sunlight and wind to kind of penetrate the canopy so that you can lower your incidence of disease. And it also makes it a little bit easier if you're using a spray schedule and you need to spray into the center of that canopy. And it also is encouraging tree strength. So you're strengthening the branches that you want that are good producers and encourages the new growth that you need in order to get that fruiting so that air circulation is really important and reducing that potential for disease as well. As you may need to prune in order to remove the dead or broken branches. And in particular, if you're dealing with something like Fireblades, proper pruning can actually save the tree in some circumstances.

Emily

So it's worth noting that pruning can oftentimes be one of the more difficult aspects of having fruit trees because it is a little bit more complicated than just pruning a general landscape tree. It's going to vary depending on your variety and the species you are. But typically speaking, you're going to prune in late winter, so February to March, and you are going to prune differently depending on how old the tree is. So your very young trees, year one trees, are going to have a different pruning method to help develop healthy, good branch structures and shapes versus year two and three year old trees. And then even your older trees will also have different pruning styles to them. And you can go to the University of Maryland's Home and Garden Information Center's website. We have a really good page dedicated to the different terminologies for pruning, the different ways you're going to prune pruning for things where it's on new growth versus second year or third year growth and all that. So definitely spend some time there. A general advice, though, is to make sure that when you are doing cuts that you cut back to that branch collar.

Emily

You can go back to our episode with Andrew Risvi when he talked about tree pruning specifically. And what this does is it allows the tree to scab over that cut more easily, which reduces the likelihood of it getting insects or diseases into it. Michaela, I think we have some native fruit trees that people could potentially consider.

Mikaela

I do. And I'm going to try and keep it short because I know we've covered a ton of information, but I do think it's worth noting because native fruit trees and shrubs tend to be lower maintenance and maybe better equipped to handle the diseases and pests that we encounter in the Mid Atlantic. Now, you can't have the same expectations for them to produce the same as the ones that are commercially cultivated because, of course, they're resistant to some of these other issues because they've evolved over time. And so what makes them more resistant? Those things might mean that they don't produce as much fruit, or the fruit period is a very short one. So I'm going to start with there's pawpaw. And I know we've talked about pawpaw trees before. If you're going to buy them to get fruit, you need at least two specimens that are genetically different. So if you know somebody who's given you two seedlings that they had at home, chances are they are not genetically different because they were formed in the same colony. So once they get established, they kind of form a patch and that is not genetically different enough for them to kind of do that pollination that they need.

Mikaela

So they're very sensitive and difficult to transplant. And in the wilds they prefer like a well drained understory, so they aren't necessarily a full sun performer. And the environment has to be just right for pawpas. They really are a lot more sensitive. Now, persimmons were my native plant of the month last October, so I won't go into great detail. But this is another one of those that needs a male and a female plant, preferably several females, if you want quite a few fruits. But once they get mature, once they get tall, which will take a little while, they do have a nice crop that they put out, and they're quite delicious when it's the right time to harvest. They're very sweet, as opposed to some of these other picks, which have fruits that are a little bit more tart, which leads me to my next, which is Erroneous. So we have two species that are native here. Erroneum melanocarpa is my favorite, probably. So this is black chokeberry? It's a vigorous grower with a lot of benefits, so it makes a great landscape tree, and it does produce a lot of fruits when it's in the right environment.

Mikaela

Unfortunately, those beautiful dark berry fruits are very high in antioxidants, but it's quite tart as a result, and that's an understatement. This might be the most astringent fruit I've ever had, and I've eaten them raw. They have a lot of health benefits, however, namely in antioxidants. So a lot of people produce juices or syrups or whatever.

Emily

These are a good one to consider if you want to do some processing, if you want to do syrups or cannings. I know we have a colleague who puts them in a fruit smoothie with, like, yogurt and other sweeter fruits as a way to make sure you hide the spinach with all the other stuff. It's the same idea here.

Rachel

That's right. Oh, yeah.

Mikaela

But it does have that dense amount of antioxidants, so it doesn't take a whole lot in order to receive some benefits.

Rachel

They make really good jam.

Mikaela

They do make a good jam. And elderberry makes a good jam, too. So this is another one of our native shrubs. Now, they have a lot of cultivated varieties of this one as well, so it's probably the most, like, commercially noticed native shrub. So this is a good suckering shrub for wet areas and even heavy soils. So elderberries are very tolerant, but they're also very prolific. And I'm not talking fruit wise, I'm talking, like, suckers. They form like a really dense canopy. This is great for wet and heavy soils. Like I said, it will go bananas if it's in a good location.

Rachel

You've talked me into it. I'm growing them this year. Impulse buy.

Mikaela

Add a girl. And even if you don't get the berries, the fruits actually provide for over 48 species of birds. So don't feel bad if you don't get the fruits or you lose them to birds, because it's a huge wildlife supporter. One vine that I did miss, but is also a native one, is passion flowers. So Passiflora Incarnata, I believe, is one of the native species. This is a very vigorous vine in a self seeding variety. So if you plant this, this is my word of caution. It is a vigorous grower, not invasive, but it can be aggressive, so just be prepared. They produce what are called May pops, casually referred to as may pops. The flower itself is gorgeous and they also attract fertile areas, which is a type of butterfly. And the caterpillar looks so cool.

Rachel

So does the chrysalis.

Mikaela

Yeah, the chrysalis might be the coolest chrysalis ever. So there are many benefits to the passion flower vine, with the exception that it can be aggressive. So just be prepared in those circumstances. And then my last native fruit brings me into the segue of my native plant of the month, which is service berry. And I'm going to divulge more details about this soon. I say native Plant of the Month, but this is actually native genus of the month, which is service berries, because I couldn't pick just one because we have many species in Maryland. So this is amalankir is the genus name. So I'm highlighting the beauty of service berries this month. And there are many species native to the mid Atlantic area and they all bloom about in April. So I think it's important to note that spring is a fantastic time to feature flowering trees and shrubs because they provide early foraging opportunities for bees and other insects as they start to increase their activity in warmer weather. So this is a perfect pick. Service berries belong to the rose family and they have very pretty white flowers that bloom before the leaves even start to emerge.

Mikaela

Some species are shorter in the realm of, like, I'm thinking like 8ft, maybe even less than that. I think the coastal service berry is the shortest, but the larger types can actually reach 20 to 25ft tall. So some people actually refer to this group as trees instead of shrubs. But either way, they're multistemmed, and I tend to treat them as a larger shrub. And it also has become more difficult to spot service berry in bloom in the spring because they start fluorescing right on the heels of the Calorie pears, which are, of course, more frequent, unfortunately. And they start earlier in March. But amalankias, they'll start blooming maybe late March if we're in an early season, but definitely in April, they will be in full bloom. They also occupy a similar habitat, preferring the forested edges with, like, full sun to shade. And they also have a long list of benefits. They're an excellent source of pollen for mining and sweat bees in the early spring. It's the host plant for many moth species, including one called Drexel's. D'antana moth. And it is so cute. Look it up. And it has these edible fruits that are produced in the summer that are actually sweet, not astringent like Eronia, even though I love Eronia.

Mikaela

These fruits are actually edible right off the plant. And the fruits are also eaten by like 25 species of birds, plus any mammals, including humans. And if this isn't enough to sell you on it. It's also reported as deer resistant. And as we approach the fall, the leaves will turn brilliant colors of orange, yellow and red. It's really a wonderful group of plants. So while it has a lot of benefits and amazing qualities, it's important to acknowledge one large downside to service berries, which is just like a lot of our other fruit trees, because they are in the rose family, they are an alternate host for cedar apple rust disease. So any areas with significant amounts of red cedars, which includes a lot of the Eastern Shore, can almost guarantee that the service berries will also get this fungus. And it's very obvious because just like the name implies, it's an orange type of fungal leaf spot. So while not fatal to the plant, it does deform the fruits, rendering them basically inedible and unattractive. I mean, they look pretty gnarly. So while it has the potential to make a really great landscape addition, just keep in mind you may also have to deal with this sort of rust disease.

Mikaela

And that's my native plants of the Month, plural.

Emily

I like it. These ones are very cool. I think you've talked about them a few times before.

Mikaela

I probably have, but I looked back and none of them made my native Plant of the Month for my record. So it's just about time.

Rachel

It's about that in a minute, we're going to talk about the plum curcuio. I don't know.

Emily

Okay.

Rachel

I got to look this up.

Emily

So this month was kind of hard because with the theme of fruit, I had several fruit themed insect pests that I could talk about, but I ended up picking the plum QEO, which is a type of snatch beetle or weevil. So these are traditionally like round beetles that have kinds of the gonzo like snatch to them. And this one is found in most states east of the Rocky Mountains, including most of the mid Atlantic area. And it is one of the most serious pests that you're going to find on peach trees. And it's considered the second most common pest you would find on apples. After the coldine, both the adults and the larvae will feed on the fruit, which potentially opens that fruit up to the possibility of having brown rot or other rots come in. So if the bug feeding on it alone wasn't enough, it's going to allow some diseases to get in there. These are dark brown beetles that are about a fourth an inch long. And again, they have this predominant snout that's actually a third of the length of their body. The adults are going to overwinter in the soil or in hedge rows near your host tree.

Emily

So near any of these fruit trees, they will emerge from their overwintering sites in the spring, once the temperature gets about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, on average. The females then lay their eggs on or within the fruit. The larvae will emerge and then burrow deep into the fruit and they are sort of a gray worm like with a brown head capsule. And you cut the fruit open. Sometimes you'll see them feeding like in or around the seed. They'll oftentimes feed for about two to three weeks before they will burrow back out of the fruit, drop to the ground and they pupate. New adults will then emerge kind of mid to late summer and they'll cause more feeding damage on your mature fruit. And they make these little like crescent moon shapes because again, they've got that snout shape on it. And then they will eventually, as it gets cold, will find a place to overwinter and the cycle will repeat again. Because of their feeding damage, not only do you have the possibility of rots getting in from where the larvae board, but the skin with those crescent shape blemishes will also allow diseases to get in.

Emily

They can oftentimes become swollen and nodded themselves. If the beetles are feeding early in the season, so late May into June, feeding on really young fruits, they can cause those fruits to drop prematurely or abort. The larvae are going to create holes in the fruit skin when they leave to pupate. However, that hole is going to be clearing and it's not going to be filled with frass or poop and webbing. If you have holes with poop and webbing, chances are that is the cold moth or a different type of caterpillar that's feeding on it comparatively. So attempts by later generations to lay eggs in hard apple fruit are seldom successful. But the over positioning scars that can develop will be raised, which can oftentimes make the fruit unsellable for commercial markets. And that area would be cut off. And you process these fruits if you are growing them at home. So luckily, there are some ways that you can monitor for this pest and then control it in a backyard setting. So one easy way to determine whether or not you have this pest is to shake your trees. So you would lay down a white sheet or some big cloth or paper down and then you're going to shake your tree and you're going to then check the cloth or the paper that you lay down to see if you see any of these beetles.

Emily

And if you do, then you know that you have them and you potentially need to do some control methods for them. Also clean up any fallen fruit, particularly that early spring stuff, and cut it open and see if you see either larvae of this or other insects developing in it. And then there are some insecticides that can be applied to reduce the population and their feeding. This includes both kind of commercial ones as well as organic options like neem oil. But you do want to make sure if you are using these, that you check that label. Remember that the label is the law. You need to follow all the safety protocols for it, not only for yourself wearing personal protective equipment, but also safety protocols to make sure that you don't accidentally burn your trees when applying this chemical in an appropriate way and make sure that this pest is on the label for that chemical as well. A lot of times you'll see a lot of like the general fruit tree, fungicides or insecticides, but they're for more common things like scales and not something as unique as this. So, because this is such a common pest, lots of extension websites talk about how to go about doing those sorts of applications and other methods.

Emily

So that is my bug of the month for this month.

Mikaela

That's a good one.

Rachel

I love it. And that little thing, it is adorable.

Mikaela

It's got a snoot.

Emily

In general, I really love weevils because they are so cute. So I feel kind of bad that the first bug of the month weevil that I have is a pest one. But this one was just sort of it was either this or spotted wing drosophila, and I don't want to talk about spotted wing drosophila.

Emily

Rachel, do you have some garden tips of the month for us?

Rachel

I do. Many spring bulbs have fully emerged and are flowering. Remove spent flowers but leave the green bulb foliage alone until it yellows and dies back naturally. Even though daffodil foliage can get unruly, allow the leaves to remain for at least six weeks. You will see people braid or tie the leaves together with rubber bands. This timely endeavor results in the leaves manufacturing smaller amounts of food for the bulb, which in turn results in smaller blooms the following year. After the allotted six weeks have passed, you may remove the leaves.

The height and how frequently you mow your lawn is very important. Cool season grasses such as tall fescue and bluegrass should be maintained between 3 - 4 inches for most of the growing season and no more than 1/3rd of the leaf blade should be removed at each mowing.

Different types of foraging ants may appear in your home in teh spring time. Try using bait stations to control minor infestations. Liquid and gel formulations are usually quite effective.

Start squash, melon and cucumbers indoors to be transplanted in the garden, in two to three weeks.Or you can plant them directly in the garden, in late May through mid-June.

Start seeds of herbs, including rosemary, thyme, lavender, sage, basil and tarragon. Make cuttings of fresh mint, tarragon and rosemary from potted plants or from stems purchased in food markets. Root the cuttings in soil-less mix, under lights. 

You need to harden-off transplants one week prior to transplanting to toughen the plants and ready them for outdoor conditions.

:up beat music:

Mikaela

Well, that's all we have for this episode, listener. We hope you enjoyed it, and we'll tune in next month for more gardening tips. If you have any garden related questions, please analysts at umegardenpodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at Garden Time podcast. That's garden T-H-Y-M-E for more information about the University of Mail Extension and these topics, please check out the University of Mail and Extension Home and Garden Information Center's website. Thanks for listening, and have fun getting down and dirty in your garden. Goodbye.

Rachel

The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Senior Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture, Rachel Rhodes- Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County), and Emily Zobel-Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).

Emily 

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