Monty Don tells gardeners to complete important task on fruit trees

Introduction

A scatter of tiny fruitlets under the apple or pear tree in early summer is one of those sights that worries new gardeners and barely registers with experienced ones. It is almost always the tree behaving normally — and a small, well-timed intervention in June is the difference between a crop of good-sized dessert fruit and a heavy load of small, underwhelming ones.

What's happening

In late spring, apple and pear trees set far more fruitlets than they can possibly ripen. Around midsummer they shed a proportion of them in what growers call the June drop. It is a healthy, self-regulating response: the tree is balancing the demand on its roots, its leaves and the coming season's buds against the weight it can physically carry.

The catch is that the tree does not pick the best fruitlets to keep — it lets go of the weakest, which leaves crowded clusters behind. On a heavily-cropping year, those clusters then compete with each other for sugars, sunlight and airflow, producing smaller fruit with a higher risk of rot. Wind, rain and a heavy load on weak spurs can also snap branches that would otherwise crop reliably for years.

This is where a gardener's hand is more selective than the tree's instinct. A short, deliberate thinning pass in June finishes the job the June drop started, and skews the tree's energy towards the fruitlets most likely to ripen into something worth picking.

What this means for your garden

Time the job for late June, once the natural drop has slowed. The signal is fruitlet size — when they are roughly the size of a 10p coin, work through the tree on a dry day.

For each cluster on a spur, keep the two best fruitlets and remove the rest. Choose the largest, most even-shaped pair, and make sure they are not touching: space lets light in and air move, which cuts down on scab and brown rot later in the season. Across the whole tree, aim for fruitlets spaced roughly 10–15 cm along each branch.

A few UK-specific points worth bearing in mind:

• Thin dessert apples more heavily than cookers. Bramley and similar varieties can carry a bigger crop without losing quality.
• Pears want a lighter touch than apples. Keep two fruitlets per cluster on the strongest spurs only.
• Do not thin plums, gages or cherries in June — prune them in summer instead, after harvest.
• In colder parts of the UK, delay thinning by a week or two so any late frosts have passed.
• Always rake up and bin the thinnings; fallen fruit is the main starting point for codling moth.

Young trees benefit most from thinning: a heavy first crop can bend or snap newly-formed branches. On a light-cropping year, leave the tree alone — the June drop has already done the work.

Key points

• The June drop is healthy and expected.
• Thin after the natural drop, when fruitlets are about the size of a 10p coin.
• Keep two fruitlets per spur, spaced so they do not touch.
• Thin apples more heavily than pears; leave plums and cherries alone.
• Clear fallen fruit to reduce codling moth and wasp pressure.

First reported by the Express.