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.

Out here in the northeast all the commercial growers know that a dry summer makes great tasting fruit but they probably prefer the bigger fruit that tends to come with regular rain and lots of warm sun in between. Those big fruit really fill a bushel basket in a hurry. Season before this one I let the weeds grow under my peaches hoping they'd suck up surplus water but there was so much wet cool weather the weeds made no difference. The peaches sucked until late summer when it finally dried out a bit and we had almost summer weather. This summer was very dry but as was mentioned before some of us here (myself included) suffered from a too hard frost at least a week past petal fall for peaches. Made the harvest spotty for stone fruit. Next season I'm going to try some root pruning and maybe woven landscape fabric to shed water as an attempt to make certain peaches less vegetative and higher in sugar. Plums don't seem as vulnerable to these issues and nectarines are much less vigorous than peaches- at least the ones I'm growing here. I may not be going for what fruitnut considers optimum fruit, however. I don't even want to have his high standards- I'm already spoiled enough. Yes, pome fruit grows determinately, getting most growth with the spring surge while stone fruit is indeterminate and grows throughout the growing season. Insects have an affect on this as leaf hoppers and aphids can arrest growth and tend to on Euro plums and pomes. Unfortunately this arrest of veg growth is probably not helpful to fruit quality because they are sucking the carbs like an open spigot, mining for protean.

Debbra, first off, if you can post photos, it really does help us to better help you. Without photos, I would say to first, clear our the ice plant. As Greg has mentioned, it is competing for water and nutrients with your poor citrus tree. Next, make sure the watering situation is fixed. Your trees should be on a drip or micro-drip system. Again, as Greg mentioned, do not allow your sprinklers to hit the trunks of any of your citrus trees. It encourages rot. Next, make sure you've got a nice well formed around your citrus trees at or somewhat beyond the tree canopy. That's where your feeder roots reside for your trees. That way, the water can collect and seep down to the feeder roots. Mulch your wells, keeping the mulch away from the trunk (again, to prevent moisture from collecting and causing rot). Next, fertilize your poor tree with a good quality citrus fertilizer. Fertilize again in 4 weeks, and then put down a 3rd application in another 4 weeks. Water the fertilizer in well, and never apply fertilizer to a dry tree. Remove all the fruit, let the tree put it's energies into re-developing a canopy. Don't prune anything until you see leave flush, and can clearly determine dead from living branches. Then, prune away all the dead branches, making sure not to leave stubs of branches, nor prune so closely that you prune into the branch collar (the flare right where the branch connects into the trunk). Citrus trees require little pruning. Just removing dead wood mainly from the interior of a mature tree, or some very minor pruning for shape. Remember, citrus are tip fruiting trees, so if you over-prune, you're not going to end up with any fruit :-) And, I don't recommend going over to the Orchards Forum, you're much better off on the Citrus Forum for citrus questions (you'll get sent here if you post there about citrus.) And, you can see how I have my zones for California. USDA zones are basically worthless here in California due to all our micro-climates. I differentiate between the two, since there are certainly other folks on the Citrus forum who reside in other states, so that helps them to better understand my climate in general. But, there must be 10 Sunset zones within the USDA zone 10 here in California! Patty S.

With the water table of your soil so close to the surface you will have to make a mound of dirt for your fruit tree to sit up on to keep it well above the ground water. How high the mound you have to build is determined by the tree type. How wide the mound has to be is determined by the spread of the tree drip line when fully grown. You will have to ask around the neighborhood how high the standing water gets in your area from the heavy summer downpours and how quickly it drains off. Many builders built houses in reclaimed swamps. Your job is to gather all facts affecting your yard before planting your trees. Lou