I watched our garden transition this year from winter to spring by noticing that the plants which had over-wintered and grown at a slow snail’s pace suddenly wake up and start growing so fast that they either bloomed or bolted.

		The cover crops that were slowly poking along, all of sudden start flowering. The sweet peas that had been about 4″ – 6″ high all winter long, all of sudden took off and are now 5′ tall with fabulously fragrant blooms.   The edible peas that seemed to take so long to flower and set pods are now full of ripe delicious pods – the crop is so heavy this year that many of the peas actually make it back into the house for others to eat.

And, finally, I watched our trees go through bud swell, bud burst, white bud, first bloom, full bloom, petal fall, and fruit set.   Phew!   Take a look at these photos of each of those stages in an apricot tree. I didn’t even know that “In the Shuck” and “Shuck Split” were “named” stages.   The photo to the left is our apricot tree blooming with outrageous numbers of flowers. The tree became so loaded with fruit that one of our friends mentioned that it looked more like an olive tree than an apricot tree! Where does that leave us now at the end of April? Well, for this particular tree, we reached the stage called “time to thin the fruit”.

Thinning Fruit Trees

Last weekend, I thinned the tree and ended up removing well over 100 apricots.

After one has planted a fruit tree and waited patiently for a number of years for the tree to bear fruit, it can seem heartless to remove all of the buds the first year that the tree has buds and to then thin the fruit in subsequent years. But, really, it’s only heartbreaking when you don’t understand why you are doing these tasks. Once you understand, it might be difficult emotionally, but mentally, your brain is ready to say “ok – let’s thin the tree.”

Removing Buds from New Trees

A new tree needs to put energy into its roots. The first year that the blooms come out is totally exciting, but …be strong and pinch those buds so that your tree can put all of its energy into developing a healthy root system.  This step will enable the tree to produce great fruit in future years.

Which Trees Need Thinning

Once your tree is established and sets a lot of fruit, much of it close together, it’s time to learn how and when to thin your tree. UC Extension has put out a nice report on how and why to thin fruit trees. First, one needs to understand that some fruit trees need to be thinned and some don’t. All stone fruits (peaches, apricots, etc.) need to be thinned. Apples, Asian Pears, and many European pears also need to be thinned. Other fruit trees like cherries and citrus don’t.

Why Thin Fruit Trees

The fruit trees which need to be thinned produce more blossoms than would make for a healthy tree. If you allow all of your fruit to ripen, the fruit will be small, and the tree will spend a huge amount of energy producing the fruit. The following year you might have little or no fruit because the tree has to recover from that energy expenditure. The tree is also more susceptible to pests and diseases because it is operating at an energy deficit. Finally, disease is spread more rapidly when the fruit is allowed to touch each other.

When to Thin Fruit

Ok, suppose you are now convinced that you need to thin your fruit. The next question is “when?” Flowers and fruits will thin themselves at certain times. For example, if a wind or rain comes up during bloom, you might lose some of the buds. Or, if a flower isn’t pollinated, you won’t get fruit from that flower. Some fruit will get pests in it and drop early. And, then, in California, “June drop” comes in May – it’s called “June drop” because the tree itself drops some of the immature fruit (apparently this happens during June in other places).

Great -  so that leaves you to thin in May, right? Not exactly. Each tree is different. My apricot tree needed thinning last weekend because the fruit had reached about 1″ in diameter. For apricots in particular, the fruit should be thinned when it’s 3/4″ – 1″ in diameter. The pit will only grow to a certain size. The size of the pit in some way helps determine the size of the fruit. If the pits are not able to grow out fully because the fruit is tightly spaced (like on my tree), the final fruit size will remain small. So, I determined that with my fruit size, I needed to thin my tree even though it wasn’t yet May.

As for other thinning projects, I’ll wait a while to thin the peach, apple, and pear trees. The peach is in the shuck split stage and the apple, plum, and pears have just finished flowering. Each type of tree has a different growing season and needs to be looked at individually. In addition, within the same species (i.e. apricot), trees can be early, mid, or late season varieties.

How Much Fruit to Thin

Now that I’ve determined (1) our tree needs thinning and (2) the timing is right, I am confronted with the issue of how much fruit to thin. It’s a constant learning experience – and possibly time to go eat some snap peas before actually embarking on the actual thinning.

I’ve read different reports about how much to thin. Some sources say thin to 2″ apart, others say 4 – 6″. Other things to think about include leaving more fruit towards the inside of the tree where it’s less likely to receive sun scald than the fruit on the outside. Also, if the branch is heavy on the outside of the tree, it might be more susceptible to breaking a branch. I decided to go for 2″ apart and to revisit the tree in May/June to do additional thinning then if the fruits appear crowded. For every two pieces of fruit that I left on the tree, I probably removed 6 – 8 pieces of fruit. Nature is truly amazing!

Waiting and Watching

Now it’s time to wait and watch and do all the other things that are calling to me in the garden, like eating spring vegetables, planting out summer seeds, and prepping the garden beds. I had a great time attending the Master Gardener Spring Garden Market last weekend and bought a number of heirloom tomato seedlings. They’re now sitting in one gallon containers waiting for the weather to warm up in May. Meanwhile, their root systems will be doing some fantastic growth in the containers. More waiting and watching is punctuated by eating snap peas and smelling sweet peas. The garden is a most pleasant place to be!

Mrfmfffmm, (that’s the happy sound of someone munching handfuls of glorious snap peas)
B.