Gardeners in the east and middle west often fertilize their deciduous fruit trees in fall. When growing deciduous fruit trees in mild climates such as we enjoy in southern California, do not follow the advice given in books written for gardeners in cold-winter climates such as England or the Midwest or eastern regions of the United States. If thinning is neglected for many years, the result will be ever-smaller harvests. If fruit is not thinned out this year the tree won’t bear as many flowers and fruits the following year. Neglecting the chore of thinning out fruit can weaken the tree and effect future harvests. After thinning, the fruits should be evenly spaced down the branches with adequate room for them to grow to proper size. Gardeners may need to do this job more than once. The system is to pick or twist off the smaller fruits and leave the largest ones in place with just one or two fruits at each twig or joint. When the fruits are the size of a hen’s egg, this is the time to begin thinning the fruit out by hand. Thus the gardener must remove additional fruit.
Simply rake up the fruit every time it falls and add it to the compost pile.Īnother fact fruit tree owners need to learn is that despite June drop, the tree will never drop as much fruit as it needs to drop for its own good. Most likely it is just the natural need of the tree to drop a lot of fruit. Some tree owners who have never heard of June Drop panic when they see large numbers of fruit falling from the trees thinking they have done something wrong. The tree will drop these fruits which will never mature. Additionally some flowers may have been inadequately pollinated due to rain or other reasons and the resulting fruit from these blossoms will have brown centers and an inability to grow to maturity. Trees may drop fruit several times as a result of weather fluctuations and other factors, but this is a perfectly natural and necessary occurrence. (See page 243 of my new organic gardening book for a full discussion.) June Drop may occur any time between early May and the end of June, but usually occurs in Southern California in the first week of June.
This event happens every year and is called “June Drop”. As a result, the tree will always drop some of the fruit. Peach trees and some other deciduous fruit trees tend to set many more buds and begin growing as much as twice the amount of fruit that the tree can support.
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