Why You Want To Avoid Growing Root Crops Too Close To Fruit Trees

If you're working with a relatively small yard and want to be able to grow much of your own food, you may need to grow your plants relatively close together. This works fine for many plant combinations and can even benefit your garden when you use companion planting. But there are some plant combinations that just don't work, and root vegetables and fruit trees are one such combo. House Digest's Garden Editor and Master Gardener, Tiffany Selvey, tells us, "When planted too closely, even small root crops can damage young tree roots when they're harvested." Healthy roots are the key to healthy trees, so don't risk doing damage by planting root crops too closely. 

Despite how solid and strong fruit trees may seem, they often have surprisingly fragile roots. Selvey states, "Young trees are particularly susceptible to damage from root crops being planted too closely because their roots are so close to the surface. You certainly don't want to do devastating damage to your young apple tree by simply harvesting some carrots." Even raking around trees has the potential to cause damage to the roots, causing the tree to drop its fruit. For the same reason, you should avoid mixing fertilizer into the soil around fruit trees.

Because fruit trees are known for having shallow roots and requiring fertile soil to thrive, a lot of traditional advice for growing fruit trees recommends preventing anything, even grasses, from growing around the base of your trees so nothing competes with your fruit trees for nutrients. Even if you opt to try growing a food forest as a lawn alternative, and you create plant guilds around your fruit trees, root crops still shouldn't be included. Selvey states, "There's no magic measurement for knowing how far you can plant root crops from a fruit tree, but the canopy is a clue. As the branches of trees grow and spread, so do their roots." A good rule of thumb is to plant root crops no closer to a mature tree, generally over seven years old, than the edge of the canopy. As for younger trees, "Keep large root crops, like potatoes, as far away as possible, and keep smaller plants, like carrots and radishes, at least 5 feet from the base of the tree," recommends Selvey.

When you're short on space, but you still want fruit trees and root crops, there are options. You can try growing potatoes and similar crops in cardboard boxes so harvesting is as simple as dumping out your box or bucket. You can even grow potatoes in laundry baskets. These methods guarantee you won't disturb the roots of any of your other plants during harvesting.