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

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talking james we'll be back again real soon we out