Growing Apples at Home – Basic Facts

Blooming Season, Pollination, Harvest Season

• Apples do not fruit well on their own. Most require pollen from a different cultivar (apples are self-incompatible) that flowers simultaneously. A few apple trees are self-fertile, but they produce better in the presence of a pollinator. Apples are grouped into seven pollination groups based on their bloom season: very early season, early season, early midseason, midseason, late midseason, late season, and very late season. Choose two different cultivars in the same or adjacent pollination groups and plant them within 60 ft. (20 m) of each other. Certain apple cultivars do not produce fertile pollen (triploids) and cannot fertilize other apples, such as Gravenstein, Jonagold, or Mutsu.
• Most apples ripen between late summer and late fall, depending on climates and varieties (early, mid, or late harvest season).

Training, Pruning Apple Trees

• Young apple trees are suitable for all training forms: classic bush tree with a clear trunk, espaliers against a wall or fence, cordons (trees grown as a single upright or oblique stem, or as multiple upright stems growing from a single leg at the base), pyramid (small, neat cone-shaped trees) or stepovers (horizontal cordons on a short leg). If the size is an issue, consider a dwarf bush, pyramid, cordon, or stepover. These can all be grown in a small space or even in a pot.
• Apples should be pruned every year to get the best crop. They must also be thinned to about 8 in. apart (20 cm) to reap the best-quality fruit.
• Apple trees trained as free-standing bushes are best pruned every winter, when the tree is dormant, to ensure a good cycle of fruiting wood and create an open goblet shape with a framework of four to five main branches.
• Apple trees trained as cordons, espaliers, and pyramids should be pruned in summer to allow sunlight to ripen the fruit and ensure good cropping the following year.

Apple Pests and Diseases

• Keep an eye out for aphids, woolly aphids, rosy apple aphids, fruit tree red spider mites, mussel scale, codling moth, and caterpillars.
• Watch for apple scab, apple canker, powdery mildews, blossom wilt, and honey fungus. The easiest way to control diseases such as powdery mildew, scab, and fire blight is to plant a resistant variety such as Cortland, Honeycrisp, McIntosh, or Red Delicious.