Planting and Propagating

Planting a fruit tree is one of the best things you can do for your backyard, and for your community! Fruit trees are amazing resources, and with a little care, can produce enough fruit to feed you and many members of the NFFTT community for years to come. 

More Planting Tips

• Before you plant your tree, enhance your soil’s health by adding in some manure
• For the first two years after planting, remove all of the baby fruit from your tree! If you allow your tree to fruit when it’s very young, it won’t have enough energy to devote to establishing a healthy root system. Once the nutrients in the soil are absorbed, your fruit tree’s feast turns into famine.
• Ensure that you feed your tree annually in the early spring by putting compost or well-rotted manure around its roots.
• Learn how to evaluate your tree’s nitrogen needs by examining the new growth on their branches. Young fruit trees are often nitrogen deficient and you may need to add an organic source of nitrogen to help them along.
• Weed around your fruit trees and ensure that there is nothing planted close to them that will compete with your tree for water and nutrition. That means no weeds. No flowers. No shrubs and no veggies growing within 10 square feet (1 square metre) of your tree.

Looking for a New Tree? 

There are many places you can order a young fruit tree from. Here is a list of some of our favourites:

1. LEAF (Local Enhancement & Appreciation of Forests) is dedicated to promoting and protecting indigenous plants and trees, and offer a range of subsidized trees and tree planting services
2. Tree Mobile Toronto is a volunteer non-profit that offers a wide variety of indigenous and climate appropriate food bearing trees. They offer pick-up, delivery, and planting services in late April / early May. They also offer grants for community initiatives and private gardens.

• Have a fruit tree? Register it now.
• Want to pick fruit?