For the urban gardener who want to develop that great mini food forest, planting big fruit trees in the ground is sometimes not an option due to limited space. To work our way around that we decided to go with container gardening of dwarf fruit trees. In our video here, we potted a dwarf honeycrisp apple tree to add to the garden. Honeycrisp apples have a super intense sweetness that I love. When planted in ground a dwarf tree can grow 8 to 10 feet tall. Considering the large container we potted her in I'm expecting a maximum of 6 or 7 feet from her. Grown from seed a honeycrisp apple tree can take up to eight year to produce its first set of fruit. By purchasing the bare root fruit tree from home depot, i'm expecting fruit next year. The honey crisp apple tree does need another apple tree of another species within 50 yards or so for good cross pollination, A honeycrisp apple tree WILL NOT pollinate from another honeycrisp apple tree. I plan on ordering a fuji apple tree next.
Material Needed:
Bare root dwarf apple tree
Pot - minimum 7 gallon
Soil- preferably all organic
Perlite- moisture retention and nutrients
Peat moss- moisture retention and anti-compaction
Fertilizer- nutrients
Mulch- soil protector
For the Texas heat and sun I cannot stress how important it is to mulch your pots down. You can cut your watering in half by making sure the sun isn't beating up on your soil.