Category Archives: Fruit Trees

Who will buy my apples?

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Guide to fruit tree rootstocks
It is about this time of year that the signs go up in nurseries and garden centres around the country, announcing the arrival of the main apple harvest.

And thousands of people boldly go forth to buy their apple trees (if you recognise the parallels with Star Trek here, it will be a source of enormous relief to know that there is an Enterprise apple.  Just don’t ask what it tastes like…)

One of our intentions has been to help educate gardeners people in buying fruit trees wisely.  There are four basic components to successful cropping of almost anything

  • Buying well
  • Planting Well
  • Tending well
  • Good luck

This article is really all about buying fruit trees. UK grown fruit trees are among the best in the world and there is no reason why you should not find high quality stock easily.

Don’t ever buy anything weak and weedy. If it is sickly when you get it from a grower who is supposed to be an expert, who has access to the right soil, perfect irrigation and chemicals the average amateur can only dream about, then it will probably stay sickly. Pick it out carefully if you buy at a garden centre and send it straight back if you bought it from an online nursery if you do not like the look of it.

Get your rootstocks right.

There are already posts up on this site about rootstocks, but it pays to understand at least the principal. The rootstock is the engine that drives your fruit tree.  A weak rootstock makes it grow slowly and small. A vigorous one make sit grow fast and large.

The picture below will give you the general idea (click on the picture to enlarge or you can see it full size on our rootstock sales page):

Guide to fruit tree rootstocks

Guide to fruit tree rootstocks

Make sure you have enough pollination

Fruit tree pollination is a subject for several books, but for the average amateur gardener it is not hard to get it right.  Just hang on to the following thoughts. Trees that do not flower at the same time cannot pollinate one another and with very few exceptions apples, pears and cherries FRUIT MUCH BETTER if they are pollinated by another variety.  You can read a lot more about (and choose compatible varieties) in our guide to fruit pollination pages.

Buy Bare rooted fruit Trees

Well we would say that, wouldn’t we (although, our potted fruit trees are more expensive…).  It is also true.  If you can, organise you schedule so you plant in the winter months, and buy bare root fruit trees from an established, reputable grower.  If you can’t plant in the winter, then you have no choice but to buy pot grown. Bare root fruit trees should be bigger and healthier than pot grown – the root system in particular.  They have had all the advantages while they were being raised; space to grow, unlimited root runs, steadier moisture levels.

Good luck – buy well, plant well and sit back and watch your garden grow.

Fruit Trees at Altitude

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We get hundreds of enquiries a year about growing fruit trees at altitude and our andwers usually start off with something like:

“Unfortunately your location sounds beautiful but (from the perspective of fruit trees) terrible. You site is high up and almost certainly windy given that you are south facing and prevailing winds are south-westerly….”

Because we are nice friendly people, we try to explain why this is a problem:

“You will face two problems. The first is that air temperatures will be lower in spring and autumn than on lower ground and so fruit trees will come into flower later and have less time to ripen. The second is that wind and pollinating insects do not go together…. if you do see any insects they tend to be traveling very fast.”

We would love to sell as many orchards as we can, but without a windbreak they are a waste of time and money at altitudes over 550 feet unless peculiar circumstances apply.

To the would be alpine fruit grower, our advice would be:

  • Start with soft fruit which have much later flowering times, mature more quickly and so will ripen in time. Also, because they are closer to the ground pollination is less of an issue as well as they provide better shelter for the odd flying friend.
  • If you are determined to have a fine stand of apple trees and the odd pear, cherry and what-have-you plant a windbreak and wait at least 4 or 5 years while it establishes before you plant an orchard.
  • Or you can try to grow your fruit trees as cordons against a south facing wall where they will be warmer and ripen more quickly.
  • And above 650 feet don’t bother.

Good luck

Open Day at West Bradley Orchards

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PRESS RELEASE

September 2009

Apple Harvest Day

The apple harvest in Somerset begins in earnest in early September, and to celebrate the wonderful bounty of one of Somerset’s finest products The Orchard Pig, at West Bradley Orchards, near Glastonbury, is hosting a day of events for all the family.

The orchards will be open for apple and pear picking and everyone is invited to bring a picnic to share under the trees.  For those exhausted by the labour of picking ripe, juicy dessert and cooking apples The Orchard Pig’s cider and juice bar will be open, and there will be hot food and drink available.

Friends of the orchard, including bee keepers, honey makers, and Ashridge Trees will be on hand with their products, and there will be tractor and trailer rides around the 45 acres that make up West Bradley Orchards.

Children particularly enjoy the freedom to roam through the trees, and this year they will have the opportunity to go bobbing for apples, as well as meet the famous Orchard Piglets!

Said Neil Macdonald of The Orchard Pig “The crop is going to be a bumper one this year.  The fruit is just ripening nicely on the trees and will be perfect by Apple Harvest Day.  We have bags and containers and even wheelbarrows on site for pickers, and lots of free parking.

We will be happy to talk to anyone about their own fruit trees and we will be showing visitors around our “crushing and bottling plant”

The owner of West Bradley Orchards, Edward Clifton-Brown, said “We have the familiar  varieties that people love, such as Bramley, Cox and Jonagold, but we also have lots of very unusual varieties like Kidd’s Orange, Charles Ross, Lord Lambourne, Ashmead’s Kernel  and Early Windsor, not to mention several varieties of pear.

They are all wonderful when picked straight from the tree and many of them will keep well past Christmas.”

When so much supermarket fruit is imported this is an ideal opportunity to pick some real local produce and to help keep Somerset’s carbon footprint down.

The Orchard Pig is celebrating its second birthday this year, and is currently one of the finalists in the Waitrose and Country Living Made in Britain Awards 2009 for its Sparkling Jonagold Cloudy Apple Juice.  This, and all the rest of the award winning Orchard Pig range, will be available for tasting on Apple Harvest Day.

Sunday September 13

10.00 – 17.00

West Bradley Orchards, West Bradley, Nr Glastonbury BA6 8LT

2 miles off the A361 between Shepton Mallet and Glastonbury

Tel: 01458 851222

1 Easy Way to get Better Fruit

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Over the years, we have often heard a story very similar to this one: a first time fruit tree owner was delighted at the sight of their trees coming into maturity, flowering beautifully and being courted by all manner of bees and butterflies before becoming weighed down with piles of slowly but surely swelling fruit.

However! Their joy and wonder turned cold, like a cup of forgotten tea, as harvest time arrived. For their fruit were undersized, poorly formed and tasted nothing like the claims of the nice people who sold them the trees in the first place.

If the trees in question were apple trees, then the sad story may not be over. For if the tree has what is known in the trade as a “biennial tendency” – and many good apple trees do (and some pears by the way) – then it is likely that the tree will hardly produce any fruit at all the following year. What is going on?

The answer is simple. Even domesticated trees like our modern fruit trees are trying to spread their seeds, not win prizes for the flavour of their fruit. If they taste good to horse, then their seeds could be carried off in the belly of one. The tree’s only concern is making as many of them as possible.

In order to get a good quality fruit, it is often necessary to thin the crop. This can be done when the tree is in flower (as each flower will become a fruit, if it is pollinated) by experienced gardeners, but you can do it with good effect up to early July – the tree will have lost more energy, but you can clearly see which fruit are small or funny looking and should be removed.

By strategically sacrificing some of your bumper harvest, the tree will divert its energy to the remaining fruit, which will be sure to do well. In addition, thinning the fruit will help to even out the biennial tendency of apple and pear trees.

Apples, Pears, Peaches, Nectarines, Plums and occasionally Apricots all require thinning.