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Why You (Probably) Need to Repot Your Fruit Trees! (+How to Do It)
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Feb 20, 2024
More fruit on container grown trees? Yes, please! It can make a HUGE difference to the health, longevity, and productivity of your potted fruit trees to repot every few years (something I learned the hard way). Watch to learn not only how I do it, but how to know it's the right TIME to repot. Thanks for watching! PRODUCTS MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO: Fox Farm Ocean Forest Potting Soil https://amzn.to/3OcYTMh Miracle Grow Organic Raised Bed Mix https://amzn.to/3O8DDao LEARN MORE: Pruning Tips for Potted Lemon Trees https://youtu.be/4uuHySXtXto DIY Fruit Tree Potting Soil https://youtu.be/pQlzaSImcWo How to prune potted citrus trees: https://thefruitgrove.com/a-guide-to-pruning-potted-lemon-and-lime-trees/
View Video Transcript
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If there was one really simple thing you could do to make sure that your potted fruit trees
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lived longer, grew healthier, and also gave you bigger and better fruit, wouldn't you do it
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Well, today I'm going to be doing that simple thing, and it's repotting my fruit trees with
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fresh potting mix. So I'll be potting up these three citrus trees right behind me
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and I'll not only show you how to do it, but also how I knew it was time to repot my fruit trees
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I know I am so guilty of leaving my indoor plants in their same pots for year after year
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even though I can tell they've outgrown their pot or that the soil is really compacted and dry and
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just kind of dead looking. But then every time I do repot, I'm always amazed at how quickly the
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plant turns around, how much more vigorously it grows, and how much more important is that
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than for potted fruit trees, right? I expect it to not only grow, but also give me delicious fruit
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year after year. And how can it do that if its root ball is too big for the pot, or if it's
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left in this small amount of very depleted, compacted soil? So I'm really excited to pot
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up these fruit trees, not only to get them in bigger pots as they grow, but also to refresh
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the soil and to take a look at the health of the roots, give them a trim if they need to
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but hopefully everything is healthy. But I just, I have a feeling I'm going to see a really big
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difference in how they grow and fruit this season. First of all, how do you know you need to go to a
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bigger pot? Well, there are a couple things that you can look for. First of all, you can actually
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see by looking at the tree, especially before I pruned it, I did trim this a little bit, it just
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sort of looks top-heavy. There's more green leafy growth than looks like it's in balance with the
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size of the pot. But on top of that, this whole last season I noticed it grew really beautifully
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and vigorously, but especially toward the end of the season as I would water it, I noticed the water
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would just sit on the top of the pot for a while before it drained, as if the soil was
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compacted. And then when it drained, it would drain out really, really quickly. And so that tells me
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that the water isn't actually draining through the soil, but more likely down the sides of the pot
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which means the roots aren't getting what they need. To top it off, you can actually see the
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roots at the top of this pot, and if I try to stick my finger in the soil, which is one of the ways I
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would typically check for soil moisture, I can't. It's like the roots are too densely matted in there
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So again, I know this guy desperately needs more space and more soil to get what it needs. And to
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top it all off, this one and especially the key lime tree over there, these two would topple over
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in a breeze, which again tells me that they are top heavy. So a bigger pot should help solve all
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of these problems. So let's talk about the pot for a minute. So when you size up to a new pot, you
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don't want to go too big too fast. It can actually kind of shock the tree if all of a sudden it's
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swimming in excessive soil. So these pots that I have them in right now are 16 inch pots. Pots are
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typically measured the diameter across the top. So you want to go up about two to four inches
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total in diameter. So in other words, an inch or two of clearance around the circumference of the
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whole pot. So this is a 16 inch pot, and the new pots that I bought are in between 18 and 20 inches
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depending on the pot. So you can just see the volume has gone up, but not too much. The other
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thing to pay attention to is that I have some really nice big drainage holes. I hope you can
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see. There were a couple already in the pot, and I added a couple more just by drilling through
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so that it can drain really, really well. And the other thing is, as you can see, it's lightweight
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I like my pots to be on the lighter side because I need to be able to move them and protect them
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over the winter. And so I try to avoid a big heavy pot, although I love the look of cement
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or terracotta, but they can get really, really heavy. So I'm sticking with plastic, and this
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will last me a really long time. When your tree is young and still growing, you want to repot the
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tree every two to three years so that you can size up. Now eventually your tree is going to get to
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its full mature size, and you won't need a bigger pot anymore. But even in that case, maybe about
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every three to five years, I would carefully take the tree out and give it some fresh potting mix
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to reinvigorate the tree. So while the tree is young, about every two to three years, and then
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when it's older, about five years. As far as time of year goes, it's best to wait until the tree is
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dormant or whatever is the slow growing season. These citrus trees tend to grow year-round in my
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climate, but this time of year, right after I've harvested the fruit, they do seem to take a little
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bit of a break, although I already see some blossoms forming. I've also just pruned these
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trees lightly just to thin out the growth. Last year I gave them a big chop when they were a little
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bit younger, and if you're interested in learning more about how to prune potted citrus trees, I
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will link to that video below. But I did lighten up the growth a little bit because the idea is to
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lessen the potential stress. So we're waiting until they're dormant, or at least growing slowly
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and I've lightened up the load of the green leafy growth so that hopefully the transition to the new pot will be easy and smooth on the tree
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All right, now let's actually get to the repotting. So the first thing I'm going to do is carefully
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holding the base of the trunk. I'm just going to ease the tree out of the pot and put it on my
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I have a canvas drop cloth here, but it can be a tarp or whatever
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Look at those roots! Oh my gosh, this tree is going to be so much happier in his new pot
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All right, now I'm going to very gently just remove the loose soil. There's not a lot in this
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one. I don't want to disturb the roots too much. It's, I wouldn't, I wouldn't quite call it root
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bound, but it is approaching it. So I am going to loosen a few very carefully on the bottom
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Okay, so now I'm just going to check the depth of the soil that I need to place in the bottom of
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the pot. So you want the top of the root ball to basically be a couple of inches below the top of
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the pot. You want to leave some room for, to be able to water it. So I want to make sure it's set
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not too deep. That can be a big problem if it's set too deep. So this is about the height. So I
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actually need several inches of soil at the base. Okay, let's try that
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Perfect. That looks great. So now it's just a matter of filling in the edges with the rest of
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my potting mix. All right, so that's it. One down, two to go. Well, that's how these things go
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I potted up two of the trees. You can see them right there in their new pots, looking good
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except I ran out of potting mix. I thought I had more than enough and I did not. So learn from my
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mistake. I'm gonna head back to the store, get another bag, mix it with my pine bark, and pot up this last tree
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So a quick note about the potting mix that I used. I often make my own potting mix
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and if you're interested to see how I do that, I have another video on that that I'll link to in
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the description. But this time I decided to go with store-bought potting mix that I amended just a
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little bit, because most store-bought mixes are made for smaller pots, and so they tend to have
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finer particles, which is going to get compacted over time and isn't going to drain well enough
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for my big fruit trees. So I add about 25% pine bark to a really good quality store-bought potting
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mix. This time I'm using the Fox Farm Ocean Forest potting mix, which is really amazing
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but a little on the pricey side. So I also used something I haven't tried before, which is this
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Miracle-Gro Organic Raised Bed mix. I really like the look of the ingredients. It doesn't have any
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synthetic fertilizers in it. All of the fertilizers are natural products like bone meal and bat guano
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They've got worm castings and a bunch of other good stuff. And even more importantly for me
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it doesn't have any wetting agents in it. That's one of the things that you find a lot in commercial
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potting mixes that you want to watch for, because I've got, you know, other things in these mixes
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that are going to retain water for me. But I'm a little more concerned about drainage, especially
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because when I un-potted, if that's even a word, these trees, two of them were not rotted, but
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holding on to more moisture than I realized. So that makes me think that drainage is going to be
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really key for these. So that's what I used for my potting mixes. Now my trees are done. They're in
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their new pots. It's going to be a little bit of a pain to get them back to where they need to be
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because now they're heavier, but I will suffer and do it because I'm really happy with how it turned out
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Finally, the last step is to just give each tree a really good drink
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And if you like, you can top off with a layer of mulch. I'm just going to use my same pine bark
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just to insulate and keep the moisture in. But that's it. Let me know in the comments if you've
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done this. When was the last time that you repotted your fruit trees, if ever? No shame, it took me a
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long time, but let me know if you've done it and how it went. And I hope that this inspires you to
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go ahead and re-pot your fruit trees, give them a refresh, or maybe to grow a fruit tree in a pot
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if you never have. But thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video
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