How To Espalier Fruit Trees With A Double Cordon Trellis System

What's going on gardeners? It's Sunday, August 22nd, and it has been nothing but rain here on the southeastern coast of North Carolina. Today, I'm going to use this brief dry period to show you how to establish a second level of cordons on your espaliered fruit trees. If you're new to the channel, please consider subscribing and hitting the bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon storefront and spread shop in the video description for a list of the gardening products I use and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear. Your support is greatly appreciated. Espaliering a tree is nothing more than taking a guide like a wire or a stake of some sort to tie your trees down to to influence their shape. Here, I have a bunch of fig trees that I have been trellising along a guide cable since last year. I've been trying to put together an all-inclusive soup to nuts series on how to espalier trees, and I'm going to link to that playlist above. I showed you how to build the trellis. I showed you how to establish the low cordons, how to prune them in the winter, and also how to remove any dieback that your trees may have suffered in the wintertime. So please check out that series if you want to learn the earlier steps before you progress to this step. And while I'm using fig trees as the example trees in this video, you can use virtually any kind of tree there is. This is a great way to grow fruit trees in high density. Now, before I begin, all of the supplies that I'm using in this video is linked in my Amazon storefront down in the video description under trellising supplies. So if you need these supplies, they are linked there. The only exception are the U-posts. These are standard six foot U-posts that are about $4 to $5 a piece at Lowe's, Home Depot, Tractor Supply, and any of your other popular big box stores. I got mine from Lowe's. Hundreds of them are all stacked on the shelves. They're very light and easy to use. The reason why I recommend U-posts is because they're pre-drilled with quarter inch holes, and that makes it very easy to thread an eye bolt through. Where you establish your cordons is up to you. I chose to establish my first cordon down at 16 inches off the top of the ground. And I'm choosing to establish my second cordon 34 inches from the top of the ground. Now you can choose to establish your cordons higher or lower if you so choose. I think this allows me to have an easy reach from both the low cordon and the high cordon so I won't have to get a ladder to harvest my fruits. If you wanna go higher or lower, that's up to you. But what's critical is adequate separation. You want to make sure there is enough separation to allow the cordons to breathe. They should not be one on top of each other. We're going to use one of these quarter inch by two inch eye bolts to support the cable. And we will also need two nuts, one from the front and one for the back. They are quarter inch nuts. Here you can see my low cordon. This is the eye bolt that we used last year in order to support the low cordon. It's important that we install the eye bolt perpendicularly on the end support because that is going to hold the turnbuckle that puts the tension in the cable. On all of the other posts, you're going to install the eye bolt parallel because you're going to thread the support cable through. Now in order to thread the eye bolt, we need to move the top nut all the way to the top. Then we're going to place the eye bolt in one of the pre-drilled holes. And then we're going to put the other nut on the back of the bolt. So as you can see, we have a quarter inch nut tightly on the front. Then we have another quarter inch nut loosely on the back. So we're going to hand tighten this nut in the back completely to hold tension. Now that the nut in the rear is hand tight, we're going to take a pair of channel locks and holding the eye bolt perpendicular, we're just going to hand tighten the front nut. And now that's on there nice and snug. And now we're going to do the exact same thing with all of our middle supports, except we are going to make sure that our eye bolt is parallel because we're going to thread our cable through that. In order to build my trellis support, I'm going to use this eighth inch stainless steel aircraft cable and one of these eighth inch turnbuckle kits. I have both of these linked in my Amazon storefront to make life easy. I'm also going to use a pair of hardened cable cutters as well as one of these bolt cutters in order to press the ends onto my cable. Now, the first thing that you'll want to do is you'll want to lay out your stainless steel aircraft cable and always make sure that your aircraft cable is about a foot or two long on each side. And the reason why you must do this is because if you cut your cable too short, then you just wasted that entire length of cable and you have to start all over again. Always cut it a few feet long so you have a little bit of slack and a little bit of play when you press your ends on. The first thing we have to do here is we have to take our aircraft cable and we have to crimp it around the turnbuckle. Now, you must always start with the turnbuckle in the fully extended position because tightening the turnbuckle is what is going to apply the tension to the lines. So I'm going to start with one of these wire crimping sleeves and I'm going to place it around, I'm going to place it around the cable like this. You'll see there's two holes inside there and that is what you're going to use to crimp the wire together. So now I'm going to thread it around the turnbuckle and I'm going to take a big loop of cable and press the other side through like that. Then I'm going to pull this cable through in an attempt to tighten it around the turnbuckle. So now that we have our wire rope secured around the end of the turnbuckle, I'm going to use my bolt cutters in order to press it on. So I'm just going to place this wire rope crimp right there and then I'm going to use the force of this, just push gently just to press that sleeve on. And now you'll see that sleeve is nice and pressed on. I'm going to do that two more times, one on each end. There's two and then we're going to place one more and you'll see right there we have three big old teeth marks in that crimp and that is going to hold that wire to that turnbuckle. So now we're going to take our fully extended turnbuckle and we're going to hook it into this eye bolt right here. And then we're going to take the end of our cable and we are going to thread it through each of the eye bolts through the tree. So now the trellis cable has been run and I have a free end hanging down here. So we're going to put our turnbuckle on except we're going to treat this end a little bit differently. We're going to slide the compression sleeve over the wire, over the cable, just like we did before. We're going to loop it around the end of the turnbuckle just like we did before. And then we're going to thread the other end of the cable through the compression sleeve. However, what we're going to do is we're going to keep feeding it through and shortening the loop until we get the cable short enough so this turnbuckle can be put in place. So this excess end is going to keep getting repeatedly longer and longer. So now we have our turnbuckle basically in position and I'm going to thread it through and I have this hook here basically hand tight. So I'm just going to pull the end through. And as you can see, I have probably about two feet of excess stainless steel cable here which is exactly what I wanted to happen. So now I have this nice hand tight trellis but remember both of my turnbuckles have a lot of excess space in here. So I will be able to tighten these in order to tighten the trellis cable itself. So now that the cable is in place and I have this compression sleeve on I need to use my bolt cutters in order to press this sleeve on to make sure this cable doesn't go anywhere. There's one press, two press, and three press. So now I need to use my hardened wire cutters to cut off this excess cable. So I'm going to come over here and I'm going to simply cut the stainless steel cable. And now what we have to do is we have to hand tighten our trellis cable and we'll do that by simply spinning the turnbuckle and that will apply mechanical tension to the line and get it fairly tight. Now remember when you're tightening this cable you don't have to get it super tight. This is not a support like it would be for a tomato or a watermelon vine where it has to support the weight of the vine and the fruits itself. This is lignified hardwood right here so it already defies gravity. All you're using this is as a guide. The trees will support their own weight for the most part. So these are not supporting the full weight of the tree so you don't need it to be incredibly strong. You just need it to be tight enough and straight that it doesn't have any slack in the guide. Now that I've tightened this halfway I'm also going to tighten the other side of the trellis as well. And now our new trellis cable for the higher cordon has been installed. And it is looking great. To tie our branches down to the guide cable I'm going to use this expandable vinyl tape. And the reason why this is great is because when you tie the branches down as the branches get larger and build caliper the tape expands. It's also very, very strong. So it won't choke your trees. It holds a lot of tension so it will tie them down but it expands with the expanding diameter of the tree. Now let's talk about how to select our cordons for tying down. Now normally you'd want to do this earlier in the year before the wood gets really hard and brown. You'd want to do it while the wood is still green because it's easier to manage but it's been a very busy summer for me. So I'm going to snag this branch right here and I'm going to make it my upper cordon because it is just in the perfect position. So all you have to do is just put that roughly in line with the guide cable and then tie it down. And I'll show you how to do that. So I'm going to take this expandable vinyl tape and I'm going to rip off a generous section for tying this branch down. Then I'm going to take this branch that I showed you earlier and I'm going to pull it down as in line as possible with my guide cable right here. So you'll see right now that's really in line with the guide cable. So I'm going to take my vinyl tape and I'm going to wrap it around the trunk just like that. Kind of make like a little basket there to hold it in place. I'm going to make sure that both lengths of tape are roughly equidistant, about the same, or equal length rather. And then I'm going to take each end and I'm going to wrap it around the stainless steel cable like that. And now that that is secure, I'm going to make a double knot. And that is going to hold this cordon in place. Then I'm simply going to take another length of tape and I'm going to do the exact same thing over here. I'm going to tie it down. I'm going to wrap it around the stainless steel cable and then I'm going to double knot it. Now these two sections are tied down. If you'd like, you could also put another piece here if you want to make sure to give it a little bit of additional support. Since this wood is pretty lignified, I think these two supports will be enough because it's already holding its position very well. Now you can see what the branch looks like tied down from the cable from here. Now we're going to do the exact same thing to the other side of the tree. Now we're going to tie down our second branch for the other cordon on the other side. And again, this is why you want to do this earlier in the season before these branches are this large and laden with fruit and hard to move. But like I said, time got in the way. So I'm going to pull this branch down and it's always easiest to tie the far side down first. And then once the far side is tied down, we're going to tie the closer side down and pull it down so it's snug. Now that the two ends are tied down, we need to secure the middle. And as you can see, there's a big gap between the trellis. So I need to push down while pulling this piece tight. And it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to hold the shape. So now that that is fairly close to the guide wire, we're going to double knot this. And you can tell that there is a lot of tension right here in this piece of vinyl tape. So I'm also going to put a tie over here in order to alleviate some of the pressure in that tape and take some of that force off because we don't want it to stretch out that tape too badly. So this branch, because I let it go to the point where it got so big, needs four ties on it. And you can see them all here. One, two, three, and four. Right here, you can see one of my fig trees that I completed both cordons on. And this is a smaller tree, so it's a lot easier to see. Then right next to it is the monster tree, my Italian 258 fig that I just showed you on the demonstration. So I'll take you in for a closer look. Here, you can see the low cordon down there and then the high cordon that I tied up there. And then you'll see it branches apart to the second cordon and that cordon is growing into the other cordon from this tree. You'll see that the cordon from the Italian 258 is growing down below this other cordon for my Borgeso Blanca Negra, the smaller tree I just showed you. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pinch off this apical bud right here, which is the growth point. It's the tip. And I'm going to pinch that off because that is going to prevent this branch from growing any further. And then this branch over here, I'm going to remove the apical bud as well, which you can see right here. Just going to snap it right off. And that's going to prevent that branch from growing further into that tree. And then all of this overlap that you see right here, I'm going to clean that up once the trees go dormant. Once the wintertime comes and the fruit is done and all the leaves are gone, I'm just going to cut the branches right here at the trellis and they will meet each other. I'll keep about a two inch gap between them both. And here you can see both trees. That's the Italian 258 that I tied down. And then that moves into the Borgeso Blanca Negra. So I'm going to tie down my other four fig trees as well in the same manner. And now we have all of our trees tied down. You can see the first few high cordons that are up here. And remember, espalier is not an exact science. There is no right or wrong branch that you tie down to either the higher or lower cordons or however many cordons you intend to establish. The best branches to grab are the ones in the best position and make your life as easy as possible. Now I know it's a little bit hard to see, but once these trees go dormant and they lose all of their leaves and you cut them back, it's going to look a lot better. And your trees will grow very bushy your first year or two. And these trees are only on their second season, remember. So as you establish these cordons, they will grow more and more controlled because you will be able to control them earlier in the beginning of the season. And that right there is how you establish upper cordons on your fruit trees using the espalier technique. Now, remember when it comes to espalier, you can establish as many levels of cordons as you want. You can repeat this process over and over and establish three, four, five, six sets of cordons. The sky is the limit. It's really up to you. I personally am stopping at two cordons because I want to be able to harvest my fruits without getting a ladder. So I don't want them to be any higher than I can reach. So that's why I chose the heights that I chose. However, whatever your design is, that's your own personal preference. So consider that when designing your espalier cordons. So everybody, I sure hope you liked today's video. If you did, please make sure to hit that like button. And if you haven't already subscribed to the channel, please subscribe for future updates and more videos like these. If you want to see how I began my journey, remember, check out my espalier playlist that I already linked earlier. I'll also put a link down in the video description. If you're curious about any of the products that I used in this video or in my garden in general, they are linked in my Amazon storefront down in the video description. If you want to support the channel by purchasing any custom made merchandise, that's linked in my spread shop in the video description. Thank you all again so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video. Well, Dale, I think this is the last time I make you beef tripe because the entire house stinks. I had no idea tripe smelled this bad. Let's see if you like it. What do you think, buddy? Is that good? You better enjoy it because it's the last time I'm ever gonna make this stinky stuff.