Apple

Site and soil

Apples want full sun, at least six to eight hours a day, and deep, well-drained soil at a pH of about 6.0 to 7.0. They will grow in heavier ground than peaches or cherries, but they will not tolerate water standing in the root zone. On a hill farm, plant on a slope rather than in a hollow: the slope drains, and cold air drains away from the bloom on frosty April nights.

Air movement is your main defense against the fungal diseases that trouble apples in the humid East, especially apple scab, cedar-apple rust and fire blight. An open, breezy site that dries the leaves after rain cuts those problems in half before you do anything else. If eastern red cedars grow close by, expect some cedar-apple rust on susceptible varieties.

Spacing

Plan on 15 to 25 ft tall and wide at maturity. Set trees 15 to 20 ft apart in rows, or closer if you intend to keep them pruned to a picking height of 10 to 12 ft. Pollination partners should be within about 50 ft of each other.

Planting

Plant in early spring while the tree is dormant, or in fall after leaf drop.

• Dig the hole as deep as the root system and two to three times as wide.
• Set the tree so the graft union, the swollen knuckle a few inches above the roots, sits 2 to 4 inches above the finished soil line. Burying the graft lets the variety root above the rootstock and defeats the purpose of the rootstock.
• Backfill with the native soil and water in well to settle it.
• Mulch 3 to 4 inches deep in a ring 3 ft across, kept back from the trunk.
• Guard the trunk against rabbits and voles for the first several winters, and against deer with a cage or fence. Deer browse young apple trees harder than almost anything else on the farm.

Pollination

Most apple varieties are self-unfruitful and need pollen from a different variety that blooms at about the same time. A few, like Golden Delicious, set some fruit alone but do far better with a partner. Crabapples such as Hewe's Crab, Malibu Crab and Tomboy Crab bloom over a long window and are excellent pollinizers for the whole orchard. Some old varieties are triploids, meaning their pollen is sterile and they cannot return the favor, so plant three varieties rather than two if you include one. Bees do the work, so a flowering understory that brings them in during April bloom helps every tree.

First-year care

• Water deeply once a week through the first growing season and during dry spells the second year.
• Keep a grass-free mulched circle around the trunk. Sod competition is the main reason young apples stall.
• Pinch off any fruit that sets in the first year, and thin the second year's crop hard, so the tree builds its frame before it carries a load.
• No fertilizer in year one. After that, feed only if the tree makes less than about a foot of new growth a year.

Pruning

Train to a central leader with tiers of scaffold branches spaced along the trunk, the classic apple shape, or to a modified leader if you want a lower tree. Spread narrow branch angles with spacers or weights while the wood is young; wide, flat branches bear sooner and hold fruit without splitting.

Prune every year in late winter while the tree is dormant. Remove dead, crossing and inward-growing wood, water sprouts, and suckers from below the graft. Open the canopy enough that light reaches the fruiting spurs and air moves through. Summer pruning in July slows an overly vigorous tree and improves fruit color.

Thin the fruit in June to one apple per cluster and about 6 inches apart. Thinning gives larger, better-flavored fruit and keeps the tree from falling into a pattern of heavy crops one year and nothing the next.

Harvest

Grafted trees begin bearing in about 3 to 5 years. Harvest runs from early summer for varieties like Yellow Transparent and Red June through late fall for Arkansas Black, Winter Banana and the Limbertwigs, so a mixed planting gives fresh apples for four or five months. An apple is ready when its background color changes from green to yellow, the seeds turn brown, and it comes off with an upward twist rather than a pull.

Summer apples do not keep and should be eaten or cooked within days. Fall keepers like Arkansas Black and Golden Russet store for months in a cold, humid place, and several improve after a few weeks off the tree. Cider varieties are pressed at full ripeness, often after a week or two of sweating in a cool shed to concentrate the sugars.