Ep. 172 Growing fruit in containers | #GoodGrowing

Chris Enroth: 00:04

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, cortical educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. We are gonna be chatting with Bruce Black all about growing fruits in containers. And normally, these are grown in the ground, but can you grow them on your patio or your deck? Bruce will tell us all about it, but you know I'm not doing this by myself.

Chris Enroth: 00:28

I'm joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Ken Johnson: 00:34

Hello, Chris. Do you have any container fruits?

Chris Enroth: 00:39

Do I have container fruits? Let's see. No. I don't think I do have any containerized fruits. I might I might remember one between here and now, but no.

Chris Enroth: 00:51

I I I have some in ground ones, but nothing growing in pots. How about yourself?

Ken Johnson: 00:57

We do. We've got some I don't wanna spoil the surprise, though.

Chris Enroth: 01:00

You got you got crazy stuff. I don't know. Yeah. We'll we'll dive into that here in a second. It's yeah.

Chris Enroth: 01:06

So but I think that when it comes to to growing and gardening, Ken, it's getting warmer. It's it's hot outside. You got cleaned up very nice. You look great.

Ken Johnson: 01:21

Thank you.

Chris Enroth: 01:23

Well, what what is coming down the pipeline for us here in Central Illinois? We've been talking about this a lot, but let's let's one more update on cicada watch 2024.

Ken Johnson: 01:34

Cicada watch. So April 30, I think. Last I looked, soil temperatures in Springfield were about 61, 60 two degrees. Eight inches deep, 64 degrees is when we usually we'll start seeing some emergence of cicadas. It's gonna be in the eighties this week.

Ken Johnson: 01:49

So put all that together, I'm thinking it's gonna be pretty soon when we start having cicadas show up. I think they've Arkansas, Kentucky, Southern Missouri, they're emerging. So it's a matter of time. I know we've saying that for a while, but that that time is getting much closer.

Chris Enroth: 02:06

So, hopefully, if you do have them baby trees out there, maybe get them covered up and and protected and ready to go. You can watch our episode last week about techniques to do that, ways to do that. And, yeah, just buckle up and enjoy the show and and the the symphony of the cicada song. Em embrace it. Excellent.

Chris Enroth: 02:30

Yes. Well, Ken, back to the topic at hand today, growing fruits in containers. I think it is time to introduce our special guest. We are gonna be chatting with Bruce Black. Oh, wait.

Chris Enroth: 02:40

I I wait. Let me back up. Introduce him as professor Bruce Black. Bruce, welcome to the Good Growing podcast.

Bruce Black: 02:48

Thank you, Chris. Thank thank you, Ken. Good to be here. Yeah. Good good community college reach out there to my adjunct position as part of extension.

Chris Enroth: 03:02

If you didn't need another thing to do, Bruce, you are now teaching at community college. So, yeah, how how have you, kind of enjoyed, having access, I think, to a a greenhouse and a classroom? I mean, you get fancy tools now. Has that been fun?

Bruce Black: 03:18

So, yes, it has been a blast. Just to give a little backstory, Extension partnered with Sauk Valley Community College in Dixon, Illinois to, expand their programming, expand our programming, and coordinate their new greenhouse. It is 6,000 square feet. So for those thinking about this, usually, most high school greenhouses are about a fourth that size. So you can fit four of them together.

Bruce Black: 03:55

30 feet by 50 is usually that nice high school size. This is 60 by hundred, so we have lots of rooms split into two bays. And because it is a new greenhouse, I got to design and build the inside up. Horticulturist dream right there.

Chris Enroth: 04:19

That's amazing, Bruce. Oh my goodness. And wow. Well, I'll see you in a little bit. I gotta get in the car and go up to where Bruce is at and

Ken Johnson: 04:28

see if he'll call

Chris Enroth: 04:29

for me a job too.

Bruce Black: 04:32

Well, you never know, but, intro to horticulture is gonna be my class either way. So sorry, Chris.

Chris Enroth: 04:40

Yeah. Okay. Well, we're we're glad that you can still swing it. You're still with extension, and now you're you're teaching at Sauk Valley Community College. So we're we're happy that that you're still here with us.

Chris Enroth: 04:52

And now, in the in the words of the joker, where does he get those wonderful toys? We'll we'll be expecting, some amazing plants at every meeting that we have here in the future, Bruce. Just bring us bananas and oranges and and all kinds of stuff. Right? Yeah.

Bruce Black: 05:10

I ideally, we we might get there, but right now, we're growing, tomatoes, peppers, things for our Master Gardener plant sale that's coming up. So the traditional spring sales that you would see for a college or high school greenhouse, that's what we're got going on right now. Did our first hydroponic lettuce harvest last Monday. Made a big deal out of it because it was the very first initial harvest that the students had planted. So from seed all the way up to harvest was a blast.

Chris Enroth: 05:47

Very cool. Very cool. And that that's not the only thing you're you've been up to, Bruce, too. You are also just kind of announcing this. It's really just in the works in the beginning, but you do have a date for a very popular online, kinda learning experience.

Chris Enroth: 06:04

So tell, viewers, listeners about that.

Bruce Black: 06:07

Yeah. So, for those who might have participated in the past and some who are new to this, we have a partnership, with Iowa State University that came out of, the COVID era. And so during that time, you really couldn't go out. You needed education, and we started offering, a virtual garden day Saturday. And so we've got a date coming up for 2024.

Bruce Black: 06:38

That's going to be October 19 from 9AM to 12:30. That's our current hold date that we planned after last year. And we are just in the initial stages right now, but I wanted to let people know that that information should be coming out hopefully soon before summer so that we can get it into our local Midwestern New services.

Chris Enroth: 07:08

Well and so keep that in mind. Listeners here is we will probably plugging that here in the future. It's a great event, partnership between Illinois and Iowa, so we look forward to that. But we're not here to talk about online learning even though you're learning listening viewing this online. And we're not here to talk about greenhouses, although we we might do that here in just a second.

Chris Enroth: 07:28

We are here to talk about growing fruits in containers. So topic at hand. Ken, would you mind kicking us off in our first line of questions, please?

Ken Johnson: 07:38

I can do that. So I think one question people always have is, you know, why would I want to do this? Why would I wanna grow fruit in containers? What are some of the the advantages to doing this?

Bruce Black: 07:48

Okay. So I love this question, and it's how I always start every every topic that I every class that I do on container fruits. In recent years, about the last ten to twenty years, gardeners have been looking to downside their prop their property. So homes are starting to get smaller. Nobody I won't say nobody, but the the average person doesn't have time to take care of a whole acreage with all the responsibilities that they might have these days.

Bruce Black: 08:24

And so the one constant that has remains at the forefront is, yes, we're downsizing going away from the large yards to a small apartment or, small house with a small backyard, limiting, what you might have to mow. But keeping that fresh produce demand, I wanna be able to grow it. And so the horticulture industry has actually, over the last ten to twenty years, has expanded on that want, need, and desire and started breeding plants that are smaller, more compact, and well suited for containers. Some of the benefits for container grown fruit is you get them quicker. So you are establishing them in a smaller space.

Bruce Black: 09:19

In most cases, we're using, about a 20 inch container or a 20 inch pot. So to give, the audience just size reference, about a whiskey barrel is about 20 inches. And so with having to cut down the establishment period over having a dwarf ingrown apple tree per se, you're looking at apples within two to three years versus five to seven. For blueberries, instead of two to three years, you're looking at maybe one year. For strawberries, in some cases, you're looking at half a season if you're doing the ever bearing strawberries.

Bruce Black: 10:04

So you remove the first flush of strawberry blossoms, and then you let it establish itself, grow the root system, and it'll flower that next flush, and you'll be able to get strawberries off of there. So it does turn around the time, and turn that, ROI return to of investment back to the gardener sooner.

Chris Enroth: 10:28

So, Bruce, you mentioned dwarf size plants. I am guessing it would more than likely be a mistake to try to grow something that has not been bred for this in, like, that 20 inch container. Correct? Like, I don't wanna be putting a a normal sized, bramble blue bear like, I don't wanna put that in a pot. Right?

Chris Enroth: 10:50

Yeah. So like, dried.

Bruce Black: 10:52

So tell us your firsthand experience.

Chris Enroth: 10:57

I I thought I could be cool, and I could grow, like, blackberries, from from, like, a a maybe even a little bit smaller than a whiskey barrel, container. And, the blackberries just grew out of the container, and then they tip rooted, and they just they brambled on. As I think it was that Zeppelin that said, bramble on. I might might get chastised for saying that incorrectly. But, yeah, that it did not work well.

Chris Enroth: 11:31

I didn't get any fruit either. I just got aggressive blackberry plants that didn't like being in the container.

Bruce Black: 11:38

So that that is one thing that can happen is that they spread out of the pot, and then they become the brambling man

Ken Johnson: 11:46

Mhmm.

Bruce Black: 11:47

Which I can't think of who's sang that song either, but it's playing in my head right now when you said brambles.

Ken Johnson: 11:53

That's right.

Bruce Black: 11:56

So our brambles can escape. They can tip, as Chris said. They can also come out the bottom. If you have holes, if you're putting them on the edge of the patio, they can start to root out and run. One other thing that could happen is if you put a semi dwarfing or a dwarfing tree in a small container, it's not going to have the support it needs.

Bruce Black: 12:28

And even if you have a 20 inch container full of soil, your apple tree can get top heavy and fall over, get load heavy, and then you get more snappage and breakage, because they're not they're not, meant to go in a container. They don't have the anchorage that they need, to root into the soil. So I've also not had anybody tell me that they tried to put a seed from an apple in there because, you know, 40 foot seedling trees and a 20 inch container that I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere. But

Ken Johnson: 13:13

Mhmm.

Bruce Black: 13:15

I would not be the one to find it because my luck had probably fall on a garage or something Yeah. If it got that tall at all. So really looking at the different kinds that there are, one of the things when I was, looking into this topic because this was my COVID research at home. So I can't go anywhere. I can't do anything.

Bruce Black: 13:44

What can I do at home? I'm gonna start a backyard orchard or a backyard of bramble field, but I don't have the space. I didn't at the time. I had a patio. And so, in looking at this, one thing that I found out is that in Europe, container fruit has been there for years and years.

Bruce Black: 14:10

So in the nineteen fifties, they have had what are called ballerina fruit trees. And these are those long, tall fruit trees that just produce apples right off the side. So it looks like a ballerina standing on point, and, they're just in a standard container, which have been a great, backyard use for these fruits. The ballerina trees are a natural mutation that was inherited from the Macintosh WeCheck apple and then has become a popular type of apples that have been, in The United States, being worked on. There's multiple series out there.

Bruce Black: 15:08

The Urban Apple, which, was developed in The Czech Republic, is one that was around for a while. And then there have been, some more popular ones showing up on other fruit retailer sites. So, like, Stark Brothers, Burpee has, some fruit available through them. So they're popping up with more, popularity as the shift in small space gardening continues.

Chris Enroth: 15:45

And so when we're we're talking apples

Ken Johnson: 15:49

Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 15:49

We have dwarf apple trees. What other types of fruits are we are we think are we thinking about here? Would we consider growing in a pot or a container?

Bruce Black: 16:00

So for the containers that we or the fruit that we can grow in containers, apples are one, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries. There's currants. There's, figs, which figs and then the citrus. So lemons, limes, you can throw in, pineapple. Usually, those are the tropical house plants, that people think of, but I'm gonna grow those inside that we wouldn't typically grow here in Illinois, especially not to put outside like we would need to with, the apples, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

Bruce Black: 16:48

So there's kind of a a different set when you answer this question. There's the ones that have grown been grown as houseplants, and then there's the ones that we're growing for, food supplement. Now one thing I should just mention is with the apples, and some of the new container fruits, these are meant to be supplements. They're not to be replacements for, like, if you would put an apple tree in your backyard, you might get a hundred pounds of apples. Off of the ballerina trees or the columnar apple trees, you're gonna get maybe 20 every growing season.

Bruce Black: 17:36

So it's more of a fresh supplement than a total replacement. So that's one thing just to kinda point out for people that are thinking about making the switch or making the dive to container fruits is that, this is to still give you the freshest fruit possible because you're literally walking off of your patio, walking, out on your deck, picking your fruit, and then coming in to either eat it or use it. So that is also one of those benefits that I forgot to mention earlier.

Ken Johnson: 18:14

So are there certain cultivars or anything we should, be looking for for kind of these more containerized types?

Bruce Black: 18:20

Definitely. So for the types of container fruits that you wanna look at, apple is definitely going to be, one that is going to be specific. You can look up the brand Urban Apples, like I mentioned previously, and they have a number of cultivars under the Urban Apple series. And then the other one that I I wanna say just came out last year or two years ago from Stark Brothers was the Stark series. So these are registered trademark to the Stark Brothers, company, and they have a Spire series.

Bruce Black: 19:04

So Spire relating to the fact that they just stay on the central axis or the central leader. They have four available, if I remember right, in their series. So then with the urban apples, they have four cultivars available as well. And just like Starp Brothers is a registered trademark, the Urban Apple series is a trademark. And I don't know how much you guys get into trademarks versus cultivar names in the plant in industry, but sometimes it's easier to use the trademark name because sometimes those cultivar and patent names are random letters and numbers.

Bruce Black: 19:55

And so this is one exception when I talk about a cultivar for a specific thing that it's easier to use that trademark name because it it's not a long set of numbers. So those are two of the commercial brands that are available for our apples. And so that gives you roughly about eight cultivars to look for or choose from. And those are buying any means not a endorsement of those two companies, just two of the leaders that are really coming along. And the next one for the brambles, again, this is going to, mention a company but not be a recommendation or an endorsement for them.

Bruce Black: 20:49

But it is a series, called the brazzleberry collection. And these came out

Ken Johnson: 20:57

Bushel Bushel and Berry. They changed the name.

Bruce Black: 20:59

And Berry. Yep. Thank you, Ken. So Bushel and Berry had been from a nursery in I think it was established in the seventies, in Oregon, the state. And I have to say that because Oregon, Illinois is right next to Dixon.

Bruce Black: 21:23

So whenever I say Oregon, people are like, that Oregon? No. This not this Oregon. And so they have really taken the lead and focus on creating some unique blueberries, raspberries, and, blackberries. And all of their container fruit are bred to have not only the nice patio look.

Bruce Black: 21:49

So if you've got a nice container, they're supposed to have a bald or mount mounded, habit to make them accentuate the pot so that it's a good piece of, a nice addition to any patio. And most of these are only going to be they're gonna need a 15 to 20 inch pot. So their roots for all of these containers, Their roots only need to go down 15 to 20 inches, which when you think about is incredible to keep them balanced and stable.

Ken Johnson: 22:23

Ken here, just gonna cut in real quick. If you're wondering, the next couple plants Bruce is gonna be talking about are blueberries. With that, we will return to Bruce.

Bruce Black: 22:32

And so one of the more popular ones that people have probably heard of is jelly bean. And so jelly bean is a dwarf habit, one to two feet tall, and, it has that mounded or globe like, habit on there. Then there's also their peach sorbet, and, this one is noted for its orangish rust rust color, fall foliage. So you're not only getting the fruit of these, these, patio plants, but you're also getting a nice accentuation with that, which a lot of people, when you think about landscape design or patio design, you don't really take into, consideration your vegetables or your fruit. So that consideration of this new area of patio or small space design is really taking that to a newer level for design, which is really nice.

Bruce Black: 23:41

And then continuing with their unique naming system, when we talk about the raspberries, they've got some raspberry shortcake, keeping in mind that these only get two to three feet tall. So the nice proportion between patio or between container and plant, it's got that good ratio. They're compact. And one of the things that, when I've talked to people who have been growing container fruits, one of their most favorite things is they are thornless. So you don't have to get gauntleted up.

Bruce Black: 24:17

You don't have to wear a thick heavy sweatshirt to go, look for your, raspberries and blackberries. You can just go out right off your patio in your pajamas with your coffee and pick it right fresh. And so those are just a couple of examples of berries. There's also the blackberry from Bushel and Berry called baby cakes, very similar on their Care Habit from the strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. And so one thing, we'll kind of pivot here to strawberries for a second.

Bruce Black: 24:57

Strawberries, you can just use regular strawberries. So this is one where it's okay if you have a relative or a neighbor who's got some strawberries and you wanna put them in a container. You can just use one of their daughter plants from their strawberry plant. And for those that don't know, the daughter plant is the next generation of a strawberry. So when the runner touches the ground, every two nodes, you're gonna get a new daughter plant.

Bruce Black: 25:31

And so when that second node touches, it will start rooting and produce that daughter plant. And for some people, they get too many daughter plants, and then they give them away to friends. So this would be a great, opportunity for a small space gardener to take one of those and put them on there.

Chris Enroth: 25:55

You just gave me an idea, Bruce. So I do have strawberries in the ground, and they have crept out to the path that I take to the hose, to the spigot, towards the house, and I could take some of those up that are in my way that I keep stepping on, and I could put them in a container. Boom. I do have patio fruit. Told you, Ken, I think of one, so I will have one by the end of the week.

Bruce Black: 26:20

And, Chris, what that is a great idea. I think of a lot of people who have, strawberries and they like to escape mine. At home, they're escaping too. They're taking over another bed, which I don't mind because then I don't have to weed and plant this year. And there's pine berries in there too.

Bruce Black: 26:39

So pine berries are the pineapple flavored strawberry. They're the whitish pink ones, that you see in the grocery stores around Valentine's Day. We can grow those here. Not many people know that you can grow a pine berry here in Illinois, and it is a wonderfully great thing to grow in your backyard, and you can put them in your strawberry beds as well.

Chris Enroth: 27:08

Have pine berries now. Add it to the list, Ken. Oh, dear. Gonna need a bigger Weird garden. That's I yeah.

Ken Johnson: 27:17

Uh-huh.

Chris Enroth: 27:18

Less lawn. That's what I need. Need less lawn. Can't cut down any trees anymore. I'm I'm I'm out of trees that I'm able to cut down except for that Norway maple.

Chris Enroth: 27:29

Making notes making notes as we talk. Thank you, Bruce. I I guess, Bruce, one question that comes to mind. Now you said you did this in your backyard. I'm kinda thinking about containers here.

Chris Enroth: 27:40

This is more than just doing, like, an annual planting of petunias that we pull out. Maybe we put the container away. Do you have any tips about maybe, like, a good containers to use? Are we talking plastic? Are we talking clay?

Chris Enroth: 27:57

Are we talking stone? Like, what concrete? What what kind of container would you suggest that we use?

Bruce Black: 28:05

So that is a great question, and I'm gonna steal an adage from somebody. The world is your oyster

Ken Johnson: 28:12

Mhmm.

Bruce Black: 28:12

When you are planting in containers. So I have mine, in the pseudo whiskey barrel. So it's a composite resin, from a big box store. They're 20 inches in diameter and very, very heavy when you fill them up. So one of the things I always tell folks is think of where you wanna put this and where you wanna leave it.

Bruce Black: 28:42

Because after a while, these can get pretty heavy, especially after a rain. So you want to really put it in a spot or put it in an area where it's easy to be moved. So if you're gonna put it on your patio and you wanna keep it in your patio, keep it there. That's perfectly fine. These container crops are still fruit crops, so they do need chilling hours to produce fruit.

Bruce Black: 29:11

And so chilling hours is that sweet temperature between 32 degrees and 45 degrees that we get between November and March. And those chilling hours, every fruit plant has a different requirement of the number of chilling hours. And so apples is anywhere between 602,000 chilling hours. Blueberries, very less. So, like, 600 chilling hours, I think.

Bruce Black: 29:45

But all of our plants are going to have a chilling hours requirement. So in Northern Illinois, typically, we do not have an issue hitting those chilling hour requirements. As you go down in the state towards the very southern end of the state, you have to look at the number of chilling hours that you can get to make sure that if you're growing a cold hardy variety, you have enough chilling hours. But as you get down to the southern part of the state, you might start growing things that we can't grow up here. So back to the container question, I have mine in those pseudo whiskey barrels, which is a resin compound.

Bruce Black: 30:31

I've used plastic toy or laundry tubs. So the big ones with the rope handles, just drill a couple holes in the bottom, and, those make good patio containers. They're also great for tomatoes. I know this isn't a tomato show, but tomatoes are a fruit too. Stroop.

Bruce Black: 30:54

And so people have also used real whiskey barrels, cedar barrels, cedar planters. I have not tried them in cement planters, but I would not see an issue with growing them in cement planters. The one thing that since we are growing them outside, keeping them outside for the winter, you wanna put them in a protected area. So I got very lucky on the home that I bought. My patio is on the north side of the house.

Bruce Black: 31:37

It has a western fence and a little gazebo area encasing, the north and the west sides of my patio. So my neighbor's garage is also on that west side of that the next side of that fence. So there's not a lot of area for that northwest cold wind that we get, to really blow through there. So, if we get enough snow during a given year, that is going to be a great amount of insulation to help keep the perennial crowns of those plants alive. And that's one of the things that we want to, think about is just kinda helping to get them to survive the winter, but also still giving them that temperature range of freezing to about 45 degrees to get those buds initialed or buds initiated.

Bruce Black: 32:35

And so you can use straw just like you would with in ground planting and put that on top. You could use the heavy duty form of floating row covers. They make an insulated version where you could just drape that around if you don't have enough snow cover. Bubble wrap or foam, if you get a lot of packages through the mail, can also be insulated in there, to help it so that it doesn't freeze. And then just wrap it with a a quilt or a blanket, a comforter.

Bruce Black: 33:10

Any extra kind of fabric that you would have, definitely helps to build in that insulation. And then you would just keep that on the potted portion of the plant. You wouldn't have that on the above, plant part, because that's that's one of the downsides with container fruits is you're not getting that advantage of the geothermal heat like we do when we plant in the ground. So the ground warms up faster, and things start growing a little bit quicker. We don't have to worry about as much insulation, because of that in ground heat that we get.

Bruce Black: 33:52

But with containers, they will go colder faster, and they'll also warm up sooner. So that's something that we've had to take into consideration this year with the crazy weather that we had in February because all of my backyard patio fruit crops started to bud out right about the time that we got two hard freezes back to back. Mhmm. So in that case, I had to run over, put that big old quilt back on it, and this time, actually putting it over the entire plant to protect those buds. So even though we're taking advantage of growing quicker, there's a little bit more of a risk game in there.

Bruce Black: 34:42

So you gotta really watch the weather.

Chris Enroth: 34:46

Yeah. Three days of seven degrees in February, not so great. Felt good. Not so great for the plants.

Ken Johnson: 34:55

Stay one thing I've done with the the container fruit I have is when we get those really cold, like, polar vortex, you know, negative temperatures, I've drug those pots into a we have a detached garage insulated garage, so I'll drag them in there, which sometimes is easier said than done, but that'll help protect them too. And I did not do that this year, when we got that real cold snap, and I lost my one of my raspberries, my baby cakes. But one, the top growth is all killed off, but it's now rooting out through the bottom of the pot. So you have to figure that one out now.

Bruce Black: 35:27

So it will live again.

Chris Enroth: 35:29

Yeah. Life will find a way.

Ken Johnson: 35:31

It's gonna turn into a mess, but, yes, it is still alive. Alright. So you mentioned, you know, the kind of things we need to do with with cold temperatures and how chilling hours affect our our containerized fruit here. Is there any other, considerations, you know, kind of soil to be used, fertilizing, all of that fun stuff?

Bruce Black: 35:54

All of that fun stuff. I think it's the mandatory stuff. Well, I won't say mandatory because you can still not do it and still get some fruit. You just won't get as much fruit. So since we're growing in containers, we are going to wanna stick to a potting mix, that you can get at any garden center or big box store.

Bruce Black: 36:17

One over the other doesn't matter. I get that question a lot. Which is better? They're all generally formulated around the same thing, sphagnum peat moss, perlite, or vermiculite. So they're formulated to hold that water, better than our soil for our containers.

Bruce Black: 36:35

Containers. Makes it a little bit more breathable for our plant friends and allows them to really have that good long lasting life, in those containers. Fertilizer is going to be one of those things that is going to be beneficial. If anybody has grown ingrown fruit, you know that we recommend pruning and fertilizing on an annual basis. So far, knock on wood, I'm year three and a half, I'll say, on my container fruits.

Bruce Black: 37:08

I have just added a balanced fertilizer to them every year. As I'm just going out, and doing my containers, I'll add a little general fertilizer to the top, for for the year, and that has done fine. I have not had to prune them yet. They're still getting bigger. I will say one of the cold periods we had, I did have to go out and cut a little of the dead off, but not substantial pruning like we would with an in ground, apple tree or, bramble.

Bruce Black: 37:46

Water. Water is going to be your friend. Since it is in a container, you may have to water a little bit more often, especially if, this year is an indication for getting 70 degrees in February. Who knows what June, July, and August is gonna look like. So you might be watering every day.

Bruce Black: 38:07

Sometimes you might be watering, twice a day. With fruit, one of the things that is beneficial is consistent watering. So consistent watering is going to get you bigger fruits, especially in blueberries. They actually did research in blueberries. Blueberries.

Bruce Black: 38:29

Consistent watering over, the growth time gets you I forget if it's 10 or 18% larger blueberries. So it's very, very beneficial to have that consistent watering time. As we are getting closer to the peak of the growing season, one of the questions I always get asked, is it better to water your fruit before you go to work, or is it better when you come home? So I always tell people, if you can, water before you go to work because the plant is going to be waking up, from its night processes. And then the heat of the day, those roots are going to have something to draw on.

Bruce Black: 39:19

Plants have those natural, heat defenses that they can draw on to conserve water as you go through. But then take the two, three minutes, check your plants at the end of the day, thirty minutes if you've got a larger yard or lots of plants, and just make sure that things look healthy. You didn't get any sun scald or anything like that during the day. Another watering tip, water the base. Not the base, but the top of the pot or the base of the plant, not watering the plant.

Bruce Black: 39:54

We still wanna watch out for those, bacterial and fungal, issues that can happen. They can happen still in container fruits. One of the big things I gotta point out here. So people who grow blueberries, elemental sulfur is often used to acidify the pH to keep it in the range that it needs to be. Elemental sulfur does not work in a container pot because there's no microorganisms in that potting mix to break down the elemental sulfur into the form that it can be taken up into.

Bruce Black: 40:37

So in this case, adding more peat moss every year, adding pine needles, using an acidic fertilizer is gonna help you keep that container in, that acidic grow zone. Potting mix is naturally acidic already because it's made from peat moss. And so just those annual treatments of acid or acidifying materials will help keep those plants growing. Now one of the things that I'm still reading up on is if you add compost, which compost should have, mycobacterium in it, if that will break down the elemental sulfur. But that's one thing that I'm still reading up on to answer that question when it comes up in in presentations.

Chris Enroth: 41:31

So, Bruce, you had mentioned, about watering and potential diseases. Now when trees are in the ground, a lot of times people will call and say, hey. I got this problem, disease, bug, and a good recommendation that you'll often hear from an extension office is a multipurpose tree fruit spray. So, do we have a similar spray schedule with some of

Bruce Black: 41:55

these

Chris Enroth: 41:55

containerized plants compared to the in ground versions of them? Is it I mean, we're still growing the same species. We still have the same pests that are attacking them. So if we keep encountering those pests, would a lot of those spray schedules still hold true?

Bruce Black: 42:12

So with that question, a lot of these newer cultivars are going to have are not gonna have those, pesticide recommendations. So these were mainly designed for or mainly bred for home and backyard gardeners. They're not meant to be industry plants, so they're not gonna have that high productivity. A lot of those backyard IPM strategies that we promote are going to be good for the blueberries, brambles, apples, strawberries. Of course, any of those recommendations that we have that we teach in Extension Master Gardener, are applicable.

Bruce Black: 43:04

It's just the pesticide sprays, are usually hard to recommend in these instances. Because we're eating the fruits, we have to monitor that reentry interval or preharvest interval for when it is safe for, any kind of pesticide, whether that's organic or conventional, to break down before consumption.

Chris Enroth: 43:30

Pick those scab resistant apples, folks. Sorry, honey Chris.

Ken Johnson: 43:35

Just eat the scab or cut it down. So is there any other, you know, kind of specifics we should know about growing any of these different fruit or or maybe pollination? What we need to do about that?

Bruce Black: 43:48

So I think one of the biggest things I'm just gonna recommend is try it. Jump in. It's what I did. I haven't looked back. I love watching out the patio, seeing the things seeing the fruits grow.

Bruce Black: 44:07

One of the things in my house is usually whoever gets up first gets to go check the plants and often devours the the fruit before anybody else. For pollination, same requirements that we give for any pollinating plant. The the more pollinator activity in your area, the better your, fruit are going to turn out. Since these are meant to be backyard plants, I would say any pollinator plants that you have in your backyard are going to improve, facilitation of pollination of your apples. If your neighbors are growing apples, that's one thing I haven't considered yet if somebody else has an apple tree or crabapple in their backyard.

Bruce Black: 44:56

What happens when you plant that seed from a columnar tree? My guess is it's not going to turn out to be another columnar tree, so be careful if you're gonna go the seed bearing route. The other thing I would just share as a resource, when I was looking up container growing, there weren't a lot of extension resources out there. There were some good websites. But I did stumble on a book that's called Bountiful Containers, And this is by Rosemarie Nicholas McGee and Maggie Stuckey.

Bruce Black: 45:38

And there's a lot of good information in here. It's not just on container fruits. They have container herbs, container vegetables, and they give a lot of nice breakdown recommendation things to consider for each plant. So this was a very good resource to use, easy to read. So as you mentioned, adjunct professor at a college.

Bruce Black: 46:08

I've been reading a textbook all semester. I prefer this book. It's a lot lot easier to read. But then also because of things that have been coming out, I know University of Illinois Extension has a new container gardening info sheet that came out two years ago that also talks about fruit growing, as well as vegetables and herbs. And Missouri Botanic was also a great resource for, just learning more about the different, fruit plants that are

Ken Johnson: 46:43

out

Bruce Black: 46:43

there, not just those that are for containers, but also, just general how to on how to grow information.

Chris Enroth: 46:54

Well, it it's a brave new world of of patio containerized, fruits. I guess I let let's maybe just, also add. This is a lot of development happening from a horticultural standpoint pretty quickly. It it it's a lot is changing, and there's new names. You talk about trademarks and copyrights, and that's that's getting into muddy, like, rose territory where, oh, that's a lot of legal stuff.

Chris Enroth: 47:24

Scares me. And, you know, we we talk about different, companies and and retailers that might supply these. We don't have really good, like, university trials of this because it's happening so quickly. Mhmm. All these new new cultivars and varieties are just popping on the market all over.

Chris Enroth: 47:44

So, yeah, just do your research, folks. Yeah. We do have some resources that we will link below in the description, But this is it's fun. It's exciting. I really so I'm gonna get those strawberries planted.

Chris Enroth: 47:58

I wanna look at maybe a raspberry on the back deck. That would be pretty cool.

Ken Johnson: 48:05

Raspberry shortcake is a nice plant. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 48:07

Okay. Widen it down.

Ken Johnson: 48:10

It doesn't hold up to basketballs very well. I'll tell you about that.

Bruce Black: 48:15

Or soccer balls.

Chris Enroth: 48:16

Put it under basketball hoop. Okay. Well, that was a lot of great information about growing containerized fruit in your back patio or your back deck. The Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson. A special thank you, Bruce.

Chris Enroth: 48:34

Thank you so much for stopping by this week, chatting with us about your experiences growing these in the backyard and and, yeah, your recommendations to folks. So thank you very much.

Bruce Black: 48:44

Always happy to be here, Chris, Ken. And if anybody has any questions, comments, or concerns, I'm always happy to help answer those.

Ken Johnson: 48:52

Excellent. Yeah. Yes. Thank you, Bruce. It was great.

Ken Johnson: 48:55

Yeah. Make sure you get all those emails.

Bruce Black: 48:58

I knew I was gonna regret that the moment I said it.

Ken Johnson: 49:03

Hey, Chris. Let's do this again next week.

Chris Enroth: 49:06

Oh, we shall do this again next week. I'll be back with a garden bite for you folks, and then we are off to the races, some more exciting bug or I should say insect shows coming up after that. Again, oh, man. I got something caught in my throat. Could it be a cicada leg?

Chris Enroth: 49:23

We'll find out on the next couple episodes, the Good Growing podcast. Listeners, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening, or if you're watching this on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.

Bruce Black: 49:44

I got a cicada league leg in my teeth.