Apple tree care in autumn: highlights

Harvesting

In most cases, the harvest is carried out in the fall, after the fruits have acquired all the necessary signs of ripeness:

• the acquisition by apples of the size, color and taste characteristic of the technical ripeness of the fruits of this variety;
• the appearance of episodic falling of ripe apples.

As soon as this has happened, you should immediately start harvesting, otherwise the fruits will fall off and break.

You need to pick apples from branches carefully so that the fruits do not crumble from neighboring branches, then put them in specially prepared boxes. If you are not supposed to trim the upper branches, then a special device with a rosette-shaped thicket at the end of a long pole will help you get the apples from them: just place the selected apple inside, turn it slightly.

You need to remove the fruits from the apple tree as carefully as possible, only specimens without mechanical damage can be stored for a long time. Otherwise, the crop will begin to rot, spreading harmful spores to neighboring fruits, and even the most careful maintenance will not help preserve the crop. It should be remembered that not all varieties are able to be stored, in addition, it is better to isolate each apple - to shift them with paper or wood shavings.

Video "Autumn Care"

From the video you will learn how to properly take care of apple trees in autumn.

Top dressing and watering

After the last apple is picked and sent for storage, you can proceed to the main steps that make up the main care of your apple trees in the fall. And this is nothing more than high-quality watering, as well as feeding the garden.

First of all, let's focus on watering. It should be plentiful, especially if there was little rainfall in the fall. But even heavy and prolonged rains are not always able to moisten the soil well, so in preparation for winter, apple trees need to be watered.

In order to provide the trees with proper care, to help them survive the long winter period (especially when it comes to Siberia), in the fall, the soil around each apple tree must be moistened not only at the trunk, but even around the entire perimeter of the crown.

At the same time, you need a lot of water, since you need to wet the ground to a depth of at least 1 meter. The older the apple tree, the more water it needs. For example, when caring for young seedlings under the age of five, you will need about 50 liters for each, but fifteen-year-old apple trees need much larger volumes, for each such tree in the fall, in preparation for winter, you will have to pour about 150 liters. You have managed to provide optimal care if the apple tree's root system is completely moist, as is the soil around it. After such a manipulation, the tree will be able to gain strength so that the cold winter (in Siberia or even in the suburbs) passes without problems, and you do not have to take additional care of your garden. In addition, a sufficiently moist soil will not allow frost to penetrate deeply and damage the root system of fruit trees.

Now it's time for feeding. After watering is done (sometimes these two stages are recommended to be combined), in the fall you can start feeding.For these purposes, mainly potash or phosphorus fertilizers are used. If you add nutrients at the same time as watering, then they will reach the root system of the apple tree faster and will be instantly absorbed by the tree. If fertilizers are simply scattered over the soil surface in the fall after watering, they will take much longer to assimilate.

To nourish fruit trees, you can use both prepared mixtures sold in specialized stores, and prepared yourself. The second option involves the purchase of the components and mixing them with your own hands in the correct proportion and sequence. So, in order to provide proper care and the necessary nutrition for fruit trees, you need to take 10 liters of water, 1 tablespoon of any potash you like and 2 tablespoons of phosphorus fertilizer and mix everything well. This amount of solution will be enough for you to process 1 square meter of the garden (provided that all trees are young, not older than 10 years). Otherwise, the processing area is halved.

Never use nitrogen fertilizers in the fall. The fact is that such compositions stimulate the active development of shoots, and given that pruning is not expected in winter, they will freeze.

Preparing the earth for the cold

Autumn care of an orchard also involves the obligatory digging of the soil. In Siberia, you need to do this a little earlier, since the cold weather comes faster. On average, gardeners do this procedure around mid-September. Dig up the area with columnar apple trees carefully, so as not to inadvertently damage the root shoots. The best for this is not a shovel, but an ordinary household pitchfork.

Also, do not get carried away with loosening the earth and breaking up clods, large blocks of earth better retain the moisture necessary for the tree. Caring for trees before winter also involves removing weeds, fallen fruits and foliage from under it. After all, it is all these objects that are often densely populated with pests, which in the spring will begin to attack the plant with renewed vigor. And we don't need a new intense struggle.

Barrel cleaning and sanitary pruning

The next step in the garden at your dacha is annual pruning. This procedure helps to shape the crown, regulate the growth of trees, as well as improve fruiting and fruit quality. Pruning helps to grow apple trees with a strong and powerful trunk, which does not care about gusty winds or bountiful harvests.

There are two types of sanitary pruning: tree pruning (when the upper part of the branches is removed by about half of its length) and thinning (in this case, pruning affects the side branches or even shoots completely). Sometimes the procedure needs to be repeated in the spring, if some branches are frozen, they are also mercilessly removed.

Further care for columnar apple trees involves cleaning the trunks. To do this, you need to spread a thick film under the tree to be treated and carefully "walk" along the trunk with a hard wooden or plastic scraper to completely remove all old or exfoliated bark, lichens and moss pockets that have settled on the trunk. This procedure allows you not only to look after the condition of the tree trunk, but also makes it possible to destroy the likely pests lurking in such foci. However, care must be taken so that excessively zealous care does not turn into injuries; with active pressing, you can easily damage the delicate living tissues of the plant. This happens especially often if dry weather persists for a long time and the surface of the trunk is somewhat dry. Therefore, it is better to care for apple trees in this way immediately after a heavy autumn rain or simply by moistening the trunk with water. After all, moist flakes of the bark are much easier to clean.

In the event that the care nevertheless turned into a tree injury, do not hesitate to coat the cut with a solution of brilliant green or pour abundantly with hydrogen peroxide - this will protect the wound from infection or pathogenic microorganisms.

Whitewashing trees

This is the final stage, which involves the autumn maintenance of the orchard. It is better to whitewash the trees at the very end of autumn, when the prolonged rains have already stopped. The solution for processing can be purchased at a specialized agricultural store or prepared by yourself. This can be done as follows: mix 2.6 kg of ordinary lime with 600 grams of copper sulfate and 250 grams of wood glue. The resulting mixture is dissolved in 10 liters of water, mixed thoroughly and allowed to brew a little. That's all, you can start whitewashing. Of course, this is done in dry weather, since the lime mortar applied to the wet bark will be washed off immediately.

In the cold regions of our country, it may also be necessary to insulate the trunks in order to protect the tree roots from frost and small rodents. To do this, the trunks near the ground are wrapped in several layers of dense fabric, for example, burlap. The trunk wrapped in this way is carefully fixed with tape or twine, doing this in such a way that the lower edge of the fabric covers the base of the trunk at the very ground. This will protect the tree trunk from rodents.

If all the manipulations are carried out by you in strict accordance with the instructions set forth, your apple orchard will easily overwinter and will certainly delight you with a rich harvest of tasty and healthy apples next year.

Video "Caring for a columnar apple tree"

From the video you will learn how to properly care for such a fruit tree.