You will have planted your bare root fruit trees and they’re establishing with new growth and strong roots. The blossom survived the frost and the early bugs and has been pollinated by our lovely pollinators and you can now see the fruitlets. That’s the reward for your efforts, the reason you planted the tree in the first place.
However, dun dun dunnnnn…you need to take off any fruit that forms in the first year. Every…single…one! It feels wrong but those fruitlets need to come off now. You can also snip the blossom off if still in bloom, just be careful to not damage the young spurs that are forming.
Why do I need to remove the fruitlets?
It takes a lot of energy for a tree to fruit. If you stop this for a year, all that energy goes into forming good strong roots and structure instead. This is a great investment and a worthy sacrifice for the future of your tree. If you are really brave you could do it for two years however, I don’t know many people who would do that, myself included!
What can I do with the unripe fruit I take off?
You can compost them if they are disease free. On the farm we just threw them on the floor but for years I thought to myself there must be a use for these.
Working and growing for a Michelin starred kitchen gave me the opportunity to find a use. The chefs made an apple Cheong, this is a Japanese dish which is a fermented apple paste. I believe you could use any fruit more or less. One of these batches also “went wrong” and made a calvados based syrup, very nice!
We also made an apple vinegar which smelt incredible.
I look forward to seeing what else we come up with as time goes on
So, be brave. Lose all the fruit in the first year, I promise you it’s worth it. 🙂
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