Fruitnut, I have 2 methods and I'm sharing my trade secrets here (what the hell- I'm 6 months from 60 and hope to retire in 25 years anyway). I start some plants straight in the ground, planting them way too close in a fenced off area. Planting them close makes maintenance per plant much less expensive given that it's all done by hand (don't ask). For apples in my climate it takes about 3 years to size them up to about 1.5" diameter- at least when planted this close. I carefully dig up these BR and put them in short 20 gallon pots (wide and shallow) in a mix of 1 part peat, 1 composted wood chips or stable waste ( almost pure humus with some carbo lumps) and 1 sand, plus a little wood ash. They limp the first season but I sell them the next for around $180 per. At this point they are bearing, 12' tall and well branched and the foliage is back to mormal. Other trees I transfer to Carl Whitcomb grow bags in real soil and let them grow about another 3 years and sell them for $250 per, or less to contractors. The grow bags I use are his last edition because they allow more root out of the bag and I can grow them without any irrigation at all- even through drought. Irrigation would reduce production by about a year, I'm sure, but in my operation only my potted plants get any and they are set in the soil as well. I always take some trees in the grow bags, remove the bags and put them into 25 Gallon pots with the soil intact but surrounded by my potting mix which allows me to sell some larger trees during the growing season. Surprisingly the soil surrounded by potting mix works very well and you might want to try that method for your trees as the soil gives you much more bang per square inch and costs less. Repotting would require only replacing the artificial soil on the edge of the soil ball. It makes things real heavy though, and my soil is not too fine so I don't know how it would work with a more clay soil but I bet it would work just fine. I'm sure my prices seem outrageous by your regional standards but I'm less than an hour from NYC and here it's more than competitive- it's the best deal around- because I have scores of varieties and they're actually properly shaped for fruit production. They also plug in better than the competitions BB'd trees, especially the ones I have in pots.

Wobur: Glad to hear you are getting some good fruit. After our last discussion, I was thinking you may have too much late frost to grow anything. I have had some problems here with small fruit on my outdoor plantings, mainly with apple. Fruit is much larger this yr. I applied more N fertilizer and more water. But that can have a downside, the fruit may not taste as well. In your case, I'd try thinning even more aggressively where the fruit is small. Asian pears in particular require a lot of thinning. Would you mind telling me about where you live in CA and what your elevation is? I like to look up the weather records for places like yours just to have an idea how things work in various climates. And I might want to move back to CA someday. The Fruitnut

What's your zone? And I'll give you a list of what works

Hi gardengal, thanks for your comment -- agreed, I see repotting and fertilizing as two separate things, but after a few years was inclined to repot in case of any root binding (bounding? Boundedness? Haha) or excessive compaction, etc. I fertilize regularly as it is but was considering altering what I use in case the current products weren't quite meeting all needs... Although judging by the other pictures, it may be right in line with what everyone else is experiencing, more or less. Thank you to everyone for all the input!