Growing Fruit Trees

Fruits that we buy from the market are full of pesticides and insecticides and most often they have been ripened artificially using chemicals, chemicals that are hazardous to the health. All this can be avoided by planting a lot of fruit trees in our kitchen garden. But most of the times the fruit trees planted in the kitchen garden fail to bear good crop. To ensure a good crop from the trees planted in the kitchen garden proper procedure during planting should be followed.
The pits for planting the fruit trees should be dug up well in advance, preferably about a month before undertaking planting. Pits should be round and at least three feet deep. During summer months the pits should be left open to ensure killing of all pathogens. Mix the soil dug up from the pit with equal amounts of matured farmyard manure. The mixture should be mixed with Lindane dust or Cholorpyriphos 20EC if the soil is infested with white ants.

Plant the sapling of the fruit tree in the middle of the pit and fill up the pit with top soil mixed with farm yard manure and lindane dust or Cholrpyriphos.The pit should be filled with soil lightly compacted on the sides and top it about six inches above ground level. This will prevent lodging of the sapling after watering. Loop sided sapling do don’t show proper growth and branches may break under the weight of the fruit.

But what to do if no space for the kitchen garden is available as in case of most of the urban high rise houses. The answer lies in growing dwarf verities of fruit plants in adequate sized earthen pots (about 18’) or wooden boxes ( one cubic feet) in your terrace. But more care is needed as water holding capacity of the pots is limited. Overwatering and under watering are to be avoided. Some of the common fruit trees that can be easily grown in the pots are- Citrus, guava, papaya, mango etc. Care should be taken to buy the dwarf or normal verities of the fruit tree from a reputed nursery or Horticultural departments only.
Enjoy the fruits of your labor.