Growing Blackberries & Hybrid Berries

There are many people who just love foraging around the countryside in the late summer or autumn for wild blackberries and if the berries are picked in time they are so very yummy! But getting the right time is a rather hit and miss affair and this right time changes with each season, so some years you may arrive to your favourite area to pick and find the berries are nowhere near ripe and some years you may find they are overripe or already picked! Continue reading →

Growing Pyramid Fruit Trees

Pyramid fruit trees are popular forms for growing apples and pears and plums, gages and damsons as they allow you to grow single specimens, which managed well, will result in fairly small and attractive trees. Continue reading →

Potting Up & Re-potting Fruit Trees & Soft Fruits

It is quite possible to grow most fruit trees and soft fruit plants in containers; however to do this you do need to carefully prepare in the same way that you would prepare the open ground before planting out. Unfortunately many people acquire a tree or plant and then just shove it in a pot or container without any thought and that usually ends up with the poor thing hardly surviving or perhaps dying. Continue reading →

Planting in Wet or Frozen Conditions

In an ideal world, when it comes to planting bare root fruit trees and bushes, soil and weather conditions will be perfect, but, of course, in reality, this is rarely the case. We therefore have to manage as best we can as we need to ensure the planting of bare rooted stock is undertaken in what is often the worst period of the year for weather – December to March! So how can we obviate the problems caused by adverse weather conditions? Continue reading →

Morello cherry will grow well on a north facing wall.

Fruit Trees & Bushes for Problem Places

Unfortunately many gardeners do not have what they perceive should be ideal growing conditions in their gardens and therefore quite often do not grow anything useful in what might seem to be the most challenging places. This is very unfortunate as almost anywhere in the garden can grow plants well except, perhaps, very dry and very dark places. And from my fruit growing perspective I can advise you that fruit can be grown almost anywhere in your garden other than the two places I have just noted. Continue reading →

Growing Cobnuts & Filberts

Forget all of the nonsense that you hear about the difficulty of growing nuts – whether it be that they are unreliable in cropping, easily frosted or take a long time to reach bearing ability – and try and find space for a tree or two. Probably the only difficulty that you will encounter is beating the squirrels to the nuts but even if they do sneak off with a few there will be plenty left for you! Continue reading →

Quince & Medlars: Two Unique Fruits

Quince are one of those fruits which are fairly well known yet not often grown in the garden – possibly because they are not actually fit for eating raw unless your palate is non-existent, as they are extremely bitter and astringent. I contend that quince are well worth growing in the garden but before we go any further I must clear up the difference between the ornamental quince and the quince grown for its fruits. Continue reading →

Cordons are ideal where space is limited. They can be planted as vertical cordons or at a 45 degree angle and trained against a wall, fence or on supporting wires.

The Best Cooking Apples to Grow

Most countries have a collection of apple cultivars which they cook or eat as they see fit but the British chose to distinguish between those which adorned the tables of sumptuous dinner parties and those which finished in the kitchen for cooking purposes. This has ensured that we now have a rich vein of cooking apples which can be used for apple tarts, apple pies, baked apples etc., and those to be enjoyed especially for their unique flavour and colour. Continue reading →

How to Grow Figs in the UK

Contrary to popular belief figs will grow very well in this country and have so for hundreds of years. Although they originate from warmer parts of the world such as Persia and Syria (where they were recorded as long ago as 2900 BC) they can be very long lived in this country even if, on occasion, they may be cut back severely by frosts. Continue reading →

Summer Pruning Made Easy

If you are growing restricted forms of top fruit trees – cordons, espaliers, fans, pyramids, stepovers or even bushes – you need to undertake your pruning in the summer to help ensure maximum fruitfulness and vigour as well as for keeping your trees in good shape. Additionally, the removal and shortening of shoots and thereby leaves will allow more light to get the fruit which is essential for late ripening varieties. Continue reading →

Pollination of Fruit Trees

The flowers of the ‘top’ fruit trees that we grow in the UK – apples, pears, cherries, plums, peaches and nectarines – have both male and female parts and for a fruit to be created these female parts must receive pollen from the male parts of another flower – usually from another tree. In the majority of cases this means that you cannot grow a single top fruit tree by itself – unless you happen to have another close by in a neighbour’s garden. Continue reading →

Pheromone traps set up in your fruit trees at the end of May through to August will help control maggot damage.

Organic Controls for Fruit Garden Pests

It is interesting to note that the last few years have seen more and more gardeners growing their plants organically and this is being reflected commercially with a considerable number of growers doing likewise. But why is this happening? Is it just a modern fad or are the public generally becoming more concerned about the number of chemicals that are being used in the food they are going to eat? Continue reading →