Which pears and sweet cherries do you grow? Where did you get them, locally or mail order?
About Kathy Purdy
Kathy Purdy discovered the joys of writing in fourth grade, when she started corresponding with a former classmate. She's been writing letters ever since, first on looseleaf, then electronically, and now as weblog entries. That makes you, the blog reader, her pen pal. Her first independent (though frustrating) attempts at gardening were made in high school, though the gardening bug didn't bite hard until her mid-thirties, when she found herself mistress of a rural home on 15 acres. • USDA Hardiness Zone:4 • AHS Heat Zone: 3 • Location: rural; Southern Tier of NY • Geographic type: foothills of Appalachian Mountains • Soil Type: acid clay • Experience level: intermediate • Particular interests: colchicums, narcissus, cottage gardening, NY native plants, gardening with/for children
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Many things factor in fruitfulness. Maybe your tree is just young. Apples frequently don’t bear until 7 or 8 years old (but then go on for many decades).
They need nearly full sun to fruit.
Applying lawn fertilizer near them can suppress fruiting (and weed and feed in particular is damaging). Fruits all need a higher phosphorus to nitrogen ratio in the soil—you could try adding rock phosphate, spraying with a soluble phosphate solution like microphos, or give it a bloom booster fertilizer with the “P” # at least 2 to 3x the “N”.
Apples need pollinators (honeybees & such)—-has your neighbor sprayed the life out of the neighborhood?
If it has set fruit before but didn’t this year, a late frost could have killed the flowers.
Red Delicious needs anopther apple (including Lodi or Yellow Delicious or a crabapple like Profusion) to pollinate it. Gravenstein’s pollen is sterile so that won’t work; and your pollinator must bloom at the same time as your Red Delicious.
Whew! It is not as arduous as this all sounds. If you have a County Extension office nearby, likely they will have a good bulletin for free or nearly so, listing suitable pollinating varieties. Good luck!
Need to know why my red delicious apple tree won’t bear fruit
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