How to Clean Up Messy Fruit Trees
It's enough to bring any well-meaning gardener to tears. After all the effort you put into planting, pruning and fertilizing all those fruit trees, they're suddenly full-grown and going gangbusters--producing more fruit than you have any idea what to do with. Fortunately, there are solutions--from simple and short-term to more difficult and drastic--that will help you deal with the gooey, smelly mess brewing beneath your fruit trees. It's fairly easy to deal with the immediate mess. Deciding how best to prevent the problem in the future will take some thought. Does this Spark an idea?
Things You'll Need
- Garden gloves
- Rake
- Manure shovel
- Bucket
- Stepladder
- Optional:
- Plant growth regulator (a product containing auxins)
- Garden or farm sprayer
- Heavy rubber gloves (used only for outdoor chemical applications)
- Long-sleeved clothing
- Cap
- Safety glasses
Instructions
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Clean up the immediate mess by grabbing the rake, shovel and bucket then scraping up the dropped or fermenting fruit as best you can. Fruit that's not heavily damaged can be fed to livestock (in safe quantities). Otherwise, compost the whole mess, covering oozing fruit with lawn clippings to discourage wasps and other pesky insects. Finish your cleanup by lightly cultivating the ground under your fruit trees then hosing it down to allow remaining organic matter to break down. If this process solves your problem year after year, congratulations. If not, read on.
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In the future, make sure all fruit produced by your trees is harvested and eaten. If you and your family can't pick and eat it all, ask friends and neighbors to come over and help themselves. If there's still too much fruit, contact your local gleaners program, food bank or homeless shelter and offer all the fruit they can use if volunteers come pick it.
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Thin fruit by hand within weeks of pollination--best for grapes, apples, pears, plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines--to get bigger and better fruit but also less of it, making your overall crop more manageable.
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Thin fruit chemically--or completely neuter your trees, preventing them from producing fruit--by using growth-regulating sprays containing plant hormones. This is a temporary solution, but it's fairly easy to do each year. (The trend is toward plant hormone products using natural ingredients, so use the safest growth regulator you can find.) Time your application for maximum effectiveness. Mix the growth regulator solution only on the day you use it, and only the amount you need.
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Tips & Warnings
Thoroughly research the safety and effectiveness of plant growth regulators.
Do not mix plant growth regulators with fertilizers or pesticides.
Read and follow instructions completely when using any chemical.
