When to start growing pears
How to Grow Pear trees - Complete Growing Guide
[Music]
well hello everyone and welcome to
another very exciting episode here on
the on my gardener channel is giving
another complete growing guide and this
time it's going to be in our fruit
continued series of growing guides on
fruit trees we're going talking about
pears today definitely excited about
this one pears are an awesome awesome
fruit I cannot get enough of them
they're just so delicious and since I'm
allergic to apples they're about as
close as you can get to an apple and and
I just I eat them up like crazy so one
of the things I love a lot pears is that
you know while they don't have as many
uses as apples do they're just so fresh
so hydrating so delicious and and we use
them anything from a pear jelly to to to
pear compote man we all gosh eaten fresh
fruit salads you can't beat it
but pears will produce so much fruit for
you so when you're kind of talking about
production pears are actually up there
some of your highest producing you
weight per plant of
most of your fruit trees so I love that
about it especially because it's kind of
like the more you the more you produce
the more I can eat so just keep
producing and I won't i won't care so
it's nice that they do produce a lot one
of the things about pear trees I do want
to mention right off the bat is they do
require a cross-pollination to produce
well so the plant itself could be
growing 3040 feet tall but if it doesn't
have it doesn't have a you know another
variety to cross with it's going to not
produce very well if at all so
oftentimes people they write to us say
hey I've got a pear tree I've had in my
yard it's never produced and I said well
is it just one pear tree and they say
yeah it's just one pear tree and I'm
like okay well there's your problem
so plant a second pear tree and your
problems will be solved so just make
sure you have two varieties of pear
trees we have a D Anjou pear and this is
this is a summer crisp so we have two
varieties here that's all your in need
that's going to do great with pears
we're going to talk about the soil type
first as we talked about when you first
transplant your make sure you dig the
hole two and a half time
the the the diameter of the root ball so
two and a half times going to make sure
that the root ball is really nice and
wide fill that with good organic matter
lots of compost really well draining
soil you want to make sure that you just
promote root growth with all your
deciduous trees that go through winter
you want to make sure that that roots
definitely have a good chance especially
the first year that you transplant them
to grow fast and get kind of out of that
risk of a freeze you have a very cold
winters because they are certainly
they're certainly prone to dying if they
if they get if they get into too cold of
weather so pear trees definitely can can
handle the cold just you know it's it's
better to get them out of that cold zone
on some of your peaches and cherries and
things like that they're really
important to get out of there out of
that cold but they can definitely
tolerate negative 18 negative twenty
degrees Fahrenheit no problem they're
very very cold hardy which does bring me
into cold hardiness so pears you can
grow into zone 3 no problem at all and
they do need chill hours so I recommend
no lower in the zone or I guess no
higher in the zone had no further south
then zone 8 if you try to grow them in
like Southern California or places like
that it's not going you're not going to
have enough chill hours to make them
produce pears need around 800 chill
hours so that's how many hours below
freezing you're going to have and that
way you're going to have good production
because it kind of just resets that the
plant gets it ready to produce for next
year and so that's why places like
Michigan I mean we can we can produce a
heck of a ton of Paris can we get some
real nice long long winters which you
know kind of stink as a gardener but
also nice as a gardener too because
you're like hey I love fruit trees and I
know these fruit trees are going to
produce well because we had a nice long
winter so it's a love-hate thing for
sure but definitely important to have
those chill hours one of the things you
can look for is a lower chill hour pair
they make do they do make some pear
trees that are like eggs don't make them
there are some pear trees that exist out
there that have around 400 chill hours
but that's about is as well as low as
I've seen and there's
not many out there so do your research
there definitely are some options out
there for you but they certainly do need
quite a bit of chill hours compared to
most most plants most fruit trees out
there so there's that now when it comes
to fertilizing I'm going to talk about
this as I talked about with all of our
fruit trees we do not fertilize for the
first three months and I say fertilize
anything higher than the two zero zero
I put worm castings down and worm tea
down to really kind of boost the boost
the growth boost the root development
things like that give it good microbial
activity but I don't do any fertilizing
for the first three months after that I
do come in and I do give them a high
nitrogen fertilizer we use trifecta plus
here on all of our fruit trees after
that waiting period to really kick them
into gear get them going kind of kick
them in the butt a little bit and get
them ready for for that long cold winter
which does bring me to the fall which in
the fall you want to fertilize with a
high phosphorus fertilizer again we use
trifecta because it's formulated to use
the nitrogen up during the growing
season and then that phosphorus works
kind of later in the growing season when
it needs it the most and the plant will
kind of be kind of telling itself what
it needs as well so even if you
fertilize it with with a nitrogen
fertilizer it's not really gonna take up
a lot of it because it's kind of entry
that dormancy period and so we'll give
them that in early October
we'll give them another dosage of
trifecta we give them just a quarter cup
around the plant and that way they
cannot kind of just kind of settle in
for winter and it helps to that that
phosphorus helps to boost that root
development even further kind of give
them one last push into the into that
deeper into the soil to get out of that
that cold zone there so that's all of
that that there is about fertilizing the
next thing is watering
now with watering again I say this with
all our our trees because there's really
nothing different about it I will give
them water once everyday a gallon a day
for three weeks after three weeks I will
give them a gallon every other day for
two weeks after those two weeks about
five weeks have passed after those two
weeks of a gallon every other day I will
give them a gallon once a week and that
way there's just no stress on the on the
tree one thing you will find with
as well as apples but not as much with
apples I find it's quite rare that it
happens is browning of the leaves and
really hot weather you'll find that the
leaves kind of turn brown and you'll
have quite a bit of leaf die-off and
that really happens anything above 90
degrees so they are prone to that but
that's because they like kind of the
colder weather so that they don't do
great in hot weather and you'll find you
do have some stress and giving them that
water once a week will definitely help
to reduce that stress for sure and if
the tree does get very stressed to let
you know it'll start dropping leads and
and that's the first sign that you got
it you got to pump the water in but I
don't allow my trees to get stressed
because as soon as they are stressed
you've already kind of set the tree back
and any setbacks are not good when
you're talking about trees they have to
go through you know negative 10 negative
18 degree weather in our winters so I
just I just prefer not to let them get
stressed and then the final thing is
pruning so pruning is very very
important with with pear trees because
they do grow extremely quick as you can
see this tree has a bunch of beautiful
growth I mean this is just a stunning
stunning tree but there's a but to that
you do want to limit its growth because
they will produce these branches that
are really really long and I mean this
one here is probably like 3 feet long um
it's just it's too long to uh to allow
anything on this so what I will do is I
will actually remove all the flowers the
first year this will flower this year no
doubt it's so healthy um but I'll remove
all the flowers let it really get a nice
strong base I won't do any pruning until
the fall when the plant goes dormant
I will cut every branch that's longer
than 3 feet in half so all I have a
foot-and-a-half branch well that's going
to do in the springtime it's going to
push more lateral growth because you
just cannot have and I mean even one
fruit even one fruit would bend this
thing down to the ground with one fruit
and so just for good measure I
definitely prune them back and I make
sure that the branches are very stubby
and a lot of lateral growth which can
you know each branch might be able to
hold one pair two pairs or so and
when you multiply that by you know 100
or so branches you can have 200 pairs on
a tree no problem without any stress to
the branches as is they're just too wiry
too spindly and that's just the nature
of pears they just do that so readily um
and it looks great don't get me wrong
but looking great doesn't do anything
for production so I'm going to go
through here and this top thing on a
lock this off right at the top really
promote that lateral growth out but
again that's after this first year the
first year I'm just going to take off
all the flowers make sure it doesn't
fruit at all and then then I'm going to
once it goes dormant this coming winter
so winter of 2000 and it's 2018 I'm
going to make sure that that I I prune
off some of these branches that are a
little too long and lanky so that's all
there really is to growing pears they're
super easy
oh so pH I do want to talk about
slowpitch then I'll get it in the
comments box just make sure that the
soil is around 6.5 very very minutely
acidic but again that's kind of nitpick
they can be in in perfectly balanced pH
soil they're really not picky about the
pH as much as other plants are so you
know we always give them just a little
bit of acidic soil and that kind of
comes with trifecta there's some sulfur
and trifecta that help to lower that pH
just to right around slightly acidic
where most plants prefer but if you
don't and you just use compost the
compost is going to be a pH of 7 which
will be perfectly fine I promise you
will not have a problem they're really
really not that picky when it comes to
pH so that's all there is about growing
pears hopefully you all have enjoy
hopefully you learned something new and
also make sure to check out our other
complete growing guys we have tons of 19
grow up to like almost 30 fruits and
vegetables you can check them out at
Emma Gardner calm or on YouTube we have
a a playlist for them but if you want to
go to my garden come there's a blog tons
of free information a cool store with
$0.99 seeds all that good stuff as well
and tons of free content so much free
videos and pictures and things that you
can learn from so definitely worth
checking out you go to the media tab
select growing guys and you can find
this one along with our other thirty or
so growing guides that are definitely to
help you
grow big or go home so anyways this is
luke from the a my garter channel hoping
you all enjoyed hoping you like this
video share with your friends if you
think they'd enjoy it cuz I bet they
would and and hopefully having a great
day so anyways get out in the garden
grow some pears you'll definitely be
happy that you did alright Luke from the
a my garden channel reminding you to
grow big or go home see ya bye
[Music]
