The Secret To Successfully Growing Fruit Trees Indoors

Imagine waking up to the scent of lemon blossoms or plucking a handful of sweet cherries without even stepping outside your door. That's the magic of growing fruit trees indoors. From peach to lime, there are a number of fruit trees you can grow indoors for fresh produce year-round. However, your success depends on getting three critical elements right. These three elements include selecting the right varieties, providing optimal growing conditions, and, last but not least, proper pollination. 

You need to set up the indoor environment in such a way that it provides the fruit tree with everything it needs to produce healthy, delicious fruit, including a way to pollinate itself. The issue, however, is that indoor setting usually lacks pollinators. And, without pollination, flowers won't turn into fruit. 

Luckily, there are ways to get around this, from picking self-pollinating cultivars of fruit trees to helping your fruit trees pollinate by hand to taking them outside. Get the pollination right, and all that's left for you is to sit and watch your fruit trees flourish and bring a bountiful harvest you can brag about.

When growing fruit trees inside, turning flowers into fruit hinges on pollination. It is a key factor that requires an understanding of plant biology as well as effective pollination techniques. You can go with self-pollinating or self-fruitful trees. With these fruit trees, the need to plant multiple trees to produce fruit gets eliminated; however, this might not be an option sometimes. In such instances, you need to find a way to artificially pollinate your indoor fruit trees. 

For trees that require cross-pollination, the hand technique of transferring pollen from anthers to female stigma often produces reliable results. You can easily do this with the help of cotton swabs, paintbrushes or specialized pollination tools. And to increase the chances, try doing it in mid-morning hours when the pollen viability peaks and flowers are fully open. On the other hand, if you are all in for doing things the natural way, you can consider moving your indoor fruit trees outside. 

This will allow pollinators temporary access and also direct sunlight, boosting fruit set. However, make sure that you let your trees adjust slowly to the outdoor environment by starting with just a few hours in partial shade outside.

When hand-pollinating fruit trees, one attempt is rarely enough. Chances are you will have to do it more than once, especially if fruit set is poor. This is because not all the flowers on your fruit are going to open at the same time, and you will likely visit it multiple times anyway. So, it just makes sense to leave your pollinator tool or brush nearby and give each fresh bloom a quick rub whenever you stop by. 

You will know that you have successfully hand-pollinated your fruit trees when you see their petals fall off and the base of the flower swelling, forming tiny green fruitlets. This usually happens 10 to 14 days after the bloom period if pollination is successful. However, if you have multiple indoor fruit trees and you want to attempt cross-pollination, you can try manipulating their light exposure. 

By tweaking the amount of light and duration of exposure, you can synchronize bloom times, giving different varieties better overlap for cross-pollination. Lastly, try to maintain a stable indoor climate, especially when the fruit trees are in bloom. Extreme temperature swings, either too hot or too cold, can make the pollen sterile and also cause flowers to drop, wasting all your hard work.