Planting Fruit Trees in the Winter

[LittleMissLimos]

I need apricots asap but I'm currently in winter and apricot trees give fruit in the spring... If I plant a sapling now in winter, will it grow? I know most other crops die in the winter but I wasn't sure about the fruit tree saplings as I haven't planted any fruit trees yet.

[YetiChow]

Fruit trees will grow in the winter; although anything delaying their growth (weeds/grass/rocks/etc. appearing next to them) will delay them as usual.

I generally aim to get my Spring orchard additions planted in the last week of Fall so that they'll have a few days' margin, ensuring they'll be ready for Spring 1. However, missing the first couple of days of fruiting season won't really hurt.

Remember that fruit trees need to be planted 2 spaces apart as well, and that once they're grown you can plant other things underneath them with no penalty... so if you get the fruit trees basically grown through Winter, you can use the space between them for some mid-Spring crops once the trees are bearing fruit.

When I'm planning out my orchard, I usually use flooring to fill in the gaps between the trees--that prevents weeds springing up in the meantime. When the sapling is planted the flooring has to come out, of course, but if it's prevented the random appearance of debris at season's start then it's done its job

[di eshor ribly]

Originally posted by YetiChow:

Remember that fruit trees need to be planted 2 spaces apart as well, and that once they're grown you can plant other things underneath them with no penalty... so if you get the fruit trees basically grown through Winter, you can use the space between them for some mid-Spring crops once the trees are bearing fruit.

I haven't had fruit trees long enough for the quality to improve yet (I get graded on the farm and start a new game usually), but unless I'm mistaken the trees need to have their area around them cleared so they actually get the quality improvement. After 3-4 years when they produce Iridium star quality fruits, then you can slap the floors/plants down around them.

[Sunwave]

Originally posted by YetiChow:

Remember that fruit trees need to be planted 2 spaces apart as well, and that once they're grown you can plant other things underneath them with no penalty... :

The penalty is that they stop growing old. In short, the quality of your fruit will not increase. If you let them grow for another 2 years, they will have gold quality fruit dropping from it (and maybe iridium if you grow 3 years, haven't tried yet). This does not happen if you put something in the way of "growing" the tree. I found out the hard way.

EDIT: Ninja'd by 6 hours. I really need to learn to read the whole thread before replying.