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     There is an oft repeated claim that every time a honeybee or other pollinating insect successfully visits an apple flower it produces another seed in the future fruit. The claim continues that the more seeds, the larger and better shaped the fruit becomes.
      I don’t know if that is true, but I have heard it often enough that I almost believe it. In any case, pollination is important with our tree fruits that have multiple seeds. Of course, these are apples and pears.
      With pears you need two different varieties. The same is true with apples, except a few varieties produce pollen that is generally ineffective in the pollination game.
      You certainly have noticed that the stone fruits, like cherries or peaches, produce single blooms while apple and pears produce clusters of blooms. The center, or king, bud blooms first and will produce the best fruit. If the king bud is successful, the side flowers generally fail. On the other hand, if the king bud fails, there are backups to produce fruit.
  Culturally, pears are rather slow growing and have a tendency to produce a rather narrow, upright tree. Training to get the branches to spread is desirable. Insect wise, there is a summer leaf chewing insect that excretes a sugary substance that will discolor the pear’s skin. I also have noticed that yellow jackets or other sting bees like ripening pears.
      Pears are generally picked rather green. Placing in a plastic bag is the best ripening and storage hint I know. Try it, even with store bought pears.
      Your first consideration with apples is the size of the tree, which is determined by the vigor of the root. The smallest will need a stake for support, while the standards often are quite large. I favor the semi-dwarfs. One catch is that each apple variety has its own growth habit and final size. In other words, two different varieties on the same rootstock may vary substantially in size and shape.
       Damage from apple scab, a fungus, will range from thick, dark blotches on the skin to cracked and misshapened fruit. Without control, you can’t grow useable apples. Recently there have been varieties introduced that show some resistance to scab. I have no experience with these. There are other disease and insect problems to think about, but they are dwarfed by the scab problem.
      The day before I wrote this, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about efforts to save some claimed 3000 varieties of heirloom apples. I could question the 3000 number, but I won’t. In general, heirlooms can be fun, tasty, ugly and more of a challenge to grow.
      To me, apples and pears are a bit harder to grow successfully than peaches, but still well within the reach of the avid home gardener.

***Apple scab photos courtesy of Cornell University

     Our tree fruits neatly fall into two groups. They either have a single large seed or pit or they have multiple seeds. The former, which will be today’s topic, produce a softer fruit and generally has growth and buds that are a bit more tender.
      Of course I’m talking about sour cherries, peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines and sweet cherries. In my opinion the above list is ranked from easiest to toughest to grow successfully. My ranking is almost entirely driven by their susceptibility to rot.
      Rots are most threatening around bloom time and in the weeks before harvest. Rainy or damp weather is also a catalyst for rots. Some fungicide is necessary unless you have found a trick I haven’t discovered.
      Insects are much less of a problem. Sure there are stinging insects that will deform the larger ones in the weeks immediately after bloom. However, with just a couple of peach trees, I spray if I get there. If I don’t I just thin off the deformed ones and have plenty of reasonably perfect ones left. Peach and nectarines almost always set much more fruit that the tree can reasonably bring to maturity.
      Recently, in the daily paper, I saw a report that the commercial fruit growers were at war with the brown stink bug we are quickly coming to hate. On my couple of peach trees I didn’t spot any problems but future years may bring problems.
With some of the stone fruit cross pollination is an issue. Cross pollination means that two different varieties are necessary, but both will bear fruit. This is not real important with peaches, nectarines and sour cherries. With apricots and sweet cherries I would plant at least two different ones.
      Plums are even more specific. Here you must match the variety with another one that will pollinate it. In other words you must have the right two together to be get fruit.
      With the exception of sweet cherries, the stone fruits bear on the previous year’s growth. Thus, with the one exception, vigorous dormant pruning will encourage good fruit producing growth. Generally pencil thin upright stems produce the best fruit. Clarifying this year’s growth will produce buds late in the summer and produce fruit the following season.
With sweet cherries it is a two year process with clusters of buds forming on a stubby shoots often called spurs.
      Again let me emphasize that most any soil, limited fertilizer and a site with good sun and air circulation are keys to success with tree fruits. Spring planting is also my recommendation.
      Repeating from last week deer can/will be a problem getting trees up and running. As soon as word gets out that you planted a sweet cherry tree the deer from miles around will drop what they are doing and hurry to your garden. They will nibble on the rest of your fruit trees after they finish the sweet cherry.
      Two bits of final advice. If I was thinking in this direction I would start with peaches or sour cherries and I would contact the Penn State Extension Service (717-394-6851) and get their guide to home fruit growing.

     Perhaps it is the economy that has driven the trend to more vegetable gardening and comments about planting fruit trees or berries. Growing fruit is the next level in food gardening. These are multi-year projects rather than a seasonal effort.
      Today I offer some generalities, followed by a bit more details on specific fruits in the next week or two. I thought about ranking the following ideas by importance, but my brain refused that assignment.
      Without exception, any of the common fruit producing plants need lots of sun. I threw in the word ‘common’ because the temptation to try some of the unusual ones occasionally surfaces in my thinking. There is a lot I don’t know in that area.
       Generally, any suitable garden soil would be great for fruit. Blueberries are a major exception. Fertilizer needs match that of the general garden. In other words, keep it rather low. My approach is to feed the chickens but assume that they aren’t too hungry.
      Since most of you did not grow up in an environment the featured free range chickens like I did 60+ years ago, perhaps I may need a new metaphor. How about, fertilize like your doctor would like you to salt your food.
      Deer can end your efforts in a hurry. I live where the deer are still actively hunted and I generally have minor problems. Yet two springs ago I planted 20 trees. I used deer repellent and everything else I could think of except barricades. One well chewed peach tree survived the season.
      This year I replanted a few and placed a square of four pallets around each tree. Success until, a few nights ago, my grandson spotted deer by the pallets. Sure enough, the twigs peeking through the pallets had become deer dessert.
      Deer are a problem. Right now I am eyeing those solar powered electric fence units I see in farm fields. The fight will continue.
      Good air circulation is a plus in disease control. That suggests that the top of a hill is better than a valley. Another obvious support for that is the fact that spring frosts start in the low areas and work up the hill. Living on a hill, I can state that in 30+ years of commercial fruit production, I saw little spring frost damage. Winter winds seldom gave me a problem, either.
       With the exception of various berries, it is still my opinion that it is impossible to grow tree fruits without at least a few chemicals. I will be more specific when I address individual fruits later. This year I harvested about nine half bushels off of two ancient peach trees.
      I used insecticides once early and fungicides four times; at bloom, in June and twice in the weeks immediately before ripening. I had my fingers crossed and may have been lucky, but I was happy. It was also rather rain free at the critical times.
      Planting and pollination are still on the list, but they too, can wait for the next article(s). You can grow your own fruit. However, you should plan your entry into fruit a bit more than when you first headed to the vegetable garden.

     One of the questions I get asked a lot is, “Should I do my garden clean-up in the fall or in the spring?” The semi-flippant answer I generally give in return is “When do you have the most time?”

     There are pros and cons to both approaches.

      If you do your clean-up in the fall, your garden looks nice and tidy over the winter. All the dead stems and leaves are cleared away to prevent rodents from setting up residence in the debris, and you remind yourself what is where, to plan for spring planting.

      Those of you that would rather wait until spring, leave seed heads and fruits for the birds to snack on and encourage a little liberal reseeding of the more prolific perennials and annuals. I have cosmos and cleome I may never get rid of.

      Waiting until spring also gives you the opportunity to enjoy ornamental foliage and seed heads over the winter. Leaving this task until March also gives you something to do those first warm days your fingers itch to get outside and you don’t have any business planting anything.

      Those are the pros. Cleaning up in the fall, and pruning certain tender perennials and shrubs is a great way to kill them. Cutting butterfly bushes down in the fall allows water to get into the base of the plants. The freezing and expanding will rupture the crown and kill the plant. Anything border-line hardy, like some of the new coreopsis and Echinacea hybrids, should be left alone until the spring.

      Mulching newly planted shrubs and perennials should also wait until the ground freezes. Anything planted after about the 15th of October would benefit from waiting. Mulching warm ground will retain heat longer than open ground, and may heave unestablished new plantings.

      So what do I do? Truthfully I do some of both. I have a lot more free time in the fall, so I clean up my spring bloomers now and leave most things that still look good alone. Peonies are looking pretty ratty about now, and since they come up and bloom when I don’t have much time, I cut them down now. Hostas and daylilies have gone dormant already, so they can be cleaned up now. I leave about half the black-eyed Susans for the birds and cut back the rest. I leave my grasses and asters alone as they still look pretty good. Hibiscus and butterfly bushes remain untouched until March.

     Never prune shrubs this time of year. If they are still green and growing, pruning encourages new growth which will not have a chance to harden off before winter. Fall pruning should be done by the beginning of September.

     I ALWAYS recommend pulling out the vegetable garden in the fall, mainly to prevent disease and random veggies going to seed. Put it to bed with a load of compost, manure or plant a cover crop of timothy. Annuals should also come out now. Most everything has been frost killed and since I usually put bulbs in my annual beds, I need to get that done.

      What to do with those beautifully colored leaves dropping everywhere? Depends. Small leaves like oaks, can be ok mulch to protect winter-tender hydrangeas, but run the risk of mouse-houses. Larger leaves like maples or sycamores should be shredded if you want to use them for compost. Their larger surface area takes longer to break down and traps too much moisture. Poplar and ash leaves should be avoided as they’ll raise the soil pH.

      Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some raking to do.

Two of my favorite groundcovers with fall interest are plumbago and liriope.

Plumbago or Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, my favorite Latin word to say out loud, is a perennial ground cover for part sun to shade. It is graced with clear blue flowers in August through September, and small oval leaves that turn a hot pink in the fall. It really brightens up a shady area, and looks great massed. I often see it used to great effect on a hillside or under Japanese maples. 

Liriope comes in two flavors, clumping or spreading.

Liriope spicata is the spreading variety available widely in green or variegated forms, with violet or white flowers in late summer followed by black berries. Though it looks like a grass, liriope is actually a member of the lily family. It has thinner leaves than L. muscari and the flowers are held slightly lower in the foliage. This form spreads quickly and should NOT be planted with other flowers in a bed, unless you are vigilant about keeping it in its spot. The variegated form is slightly less aggressive, but still runs. It will grow in dry, wet, sunny or shady locations. In deep shade, it will be slightly less vigorous. It is well-used under trees, on banks or in cement median strips.

Liriope muscari is the clumping, more elegant form. It is often used to line walkways and stays very well behaved. It could be divided ever few years to increase number of plants, but don’t count on doing this every year. Its flowers are also a lovely purple or white, followed by showy black berries on long stems. There is an especially attractive yellow variegated form which my parents have planted along the walk to their house.

Liriope and plumbago, several good groundcovers for fall interest, for a variety of applications.