Here's How to Keep Fruit Trees from Getting HUGE (It's Easy!)

It's time for solstice pruning to keep fruit trees small in the Grocery Row Gardens. Here's how we do it!

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Summer fruit tree pruning reduces the size of trees by reducing their vigor. If you cut trees back at around the summer solstice, you will keep them small. You don't have to grow giant trees! Sometimes you want smaller trees that are easy to manage and harvest from, as we want in our Grocery Row Gardens. With smaller trees, we have less shade over the plants we grow around them and we can grow a lot more varieties in a smaller space. Think you don't have enough room for a fruit tree? Think again! This is how to keep fruit trees small. You'll see us pruning mulberry trees and learn how to prune fruit trees in general so they stay at a manageable size.

[brockberrick]

Cant believe the grocery row is so insanely full with growth after you just moved in this new place. Amazing job Dave remember when you planted it

[doggiefamily]

Planting trees is very addicting. Especially if you get them started yourself, and they are free or almost free. I have way too many fig cuttings rooting, mulberries rooting, blueberries and pineapple guava.
Thanks David.
You're by far my favorite channel.

[rprimbs]

You prune your fruit trees like I do. I have an eight foot tall, eight foot wide mulberry tree -- with a one foot wide trunk -- that is about ten years old. It produces well, and even gets more berries -- at the tips of the cut off branches -- after I prune. I just pruned my tree too.

[SonderSurreal]

To keep the neighbors a little less weirded out, I got myself an electric powered chipper for this just to retain the nutrients without having sticks lying around, which I would totally do if I lived somewhere more secluded.

[donnamcfarland]

THANNNK YOU!!! I just saw this yesterday & you totally motivated me- I pruned ( hopefully not heavily) the mulberry’s after seeing this. Appreciate your guidance so very much!! ❤❤

[honorarysasquatch]

David the good, your my hero!! Keep on keeping on! Grow that food, pick that guitar, and have a wonderful time!
God bless you and your wonderful family! From a Northwest Alabama Appalachian American!👍🤪
P.S. cassava don’t like north Alabama, but North AL loves your “jungly juice”! Lol! You have the most helpful gardening channel, just chop and drop! Genius!!

[ursamajor]

I used your solstice pruning method last year on all of my fruit trees. My peach tree especially liked it and had a really great peach set and it's only a 3 year old tree. The black cherries fruited heavily but the birds got them all. I guess birds don't like peaches. 😊 Thanks for your videos and books. I continue to study and learn more.

[Crashbangable]

MI gardener had a tree getting yellow leaves recently he determined it was a pH issue because the roots had gotten down to an old concrete pad. I remember your sidewalk project and thought maybe. He pounded in conduit to make a hole removed that piece and put in a new piece then poured in pelletized ???? to adjust the pH. My two cents is probably only worth a penny.

[SunshineCountryChickens]

Great info as always! Thank you! I would make so many new trees with those cuttings! I have 31 thriving new mulberry trees from cuttings off of my main tree I pruned a month ago

[timothypollard]

Another use for those branches is tree hay for winter animal feed.
A long slender withe around an arm full makes the bundle easy to handle. I lay them in the greenhouse to dry . Goats and cows both love them.

[Nik.No.K]

Is that song about the backseat of a car actually a metaphor? I've been watching you for a while now, that's my favorite song of yours and this whole time I thought it was just about riding in a car but when I heard it today it got me thinking about the lyrics... and the more I think about it the more sense it starts to make. We're all just sitting here worrying in the backseat of a car but no matter what we do, we can never control where that car takes us. It's also a good hook! Respect from one musical gardener to another

[MaryPothoven]

Thanks for the motivational video, I needed it! I just finished pruning five trees.
84° and 84% humidity right now in Central Florida, who's complaining? 😅

[davetinoco]

I just watched a video from 3 years ago and your garden was just 9 months old I think. Seeing it lush and green now is just incredible. I took over a large garden 3 months ago and have been applying your techniques, I am already seeing the results. I cannot wait to see the changes in 2-3 years!

[eliseville]

Larger branches can make excellent 🐓chicken perches, too! Even build ladders or other chicken toys🎉

[hummingbirdhillhomestead]

We didn’t get our garden fence completed before our fruit trees bloomed this year so the deer have been pruning for us! We should have it completed soon so I guess we will have to do the work next year 😊Thanks to your training, we do have a plan.

[NonieK]

Oh cool you you answered my question before it was even over. I guess I jumped the gun lol I will wait until Medspring after they’ve as soon as the berries are off then I will trim those through that Mulberry love this video, and I will check into all those things that you mentioned. Thank you, I hope you have a wonderful wonderful summer and the rest of your life❤

[monkeymommy]

Thanks for the reminder DTG! If we chopped and dropped all of the cuttings here in Louisiana, I think we'd have an issue with snakes. ❤ the song y'all picked to go with this video "I try to keep a smile on my face".

[louiseswart]

Here we have coarse granite sand, so even the compost gets washed down in heavy rain. We never put any prunings in the garbage, but chopped up on the soil. I am hoping that the worms would mix up the clay 1-2' below with the plant debris as they work through the composted bits. I have a dream of sandy loam soil for the generation after me.

[NonieK]

I live in the desert of Arizona USA and we are now in 100s it’s we’re heading for 110+ and for a few weeks now it’s been getting warmer and warmer so now it’s today it’s going to be 108 we have already had 11010 113 114. I do have a lot of Woodchips around fruit trees, which consist of a Pakistani mulberry, which is huge and I really would like to keep it shorter but I like you said, I trim it in the winter when it’s all finally dormant, or else, we have to help it off with the leaves and then it starts growing like crazy and it’s just too big but I get a lot of mulberries but now it’s huge it’s probably 20 feet and I really need to keep it shorter and smaller because it does crowd out my fig trees. I have one on each side which I thought was going to be smaller because I talked about keeping the tree but they didn’t say anything about trimming it the people that I watched didn’t say anything about trimming it it was green now is it too hot here? I mean we’re very dry right now it’s June the end of June . So, would it be better for me to get someone up there to trim it this fall before the leaves come off or it is it too hot right now? In my area and dry it is very dry. Your place is so awesome I would love to live in a tropical type of setting I think lol we all have our drawbacks I guess. I have learned a lot of good things from you. I really work on the mulching and the composting the way you did it in the bed and layering and and I do totes that way those storage totes I layer and they’re always my best garden beds because I had this food scraps which I don’t do as much in my raised beds, but I am starting to dig trenches and put in the food scraps. But I watched one of your you just built kind of like in a pathway or something where you layer it a whole bunch of stuff to do your compost, and I thinking that that would be a good thing to do in some of my garden beds to just lay them and let them sit for a little bit so I don’t have to buy soil soil for my beds could easy cost me six $700 which on one hand is not worth it especially when you’re on a fixed income. I’m 77 so I can’t really do all that you do but boy sure wish all my kids would watch herchannel your family is awesome

[EdieBabeMonster]

Another thing you could do with some of your larger branches is use them to make a wattle fence