{"id":613787867936,"date":"2026-10-30T10:31:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T10:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ashridgetrees.co.uk\/blogs\/?p=613787867936"},"modified":"2026-10-30T10:31:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T10:31:48","slug":"grow-your-own-fruit-this-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ashridgetrees.co.uk\/blogs\/fruit\/grow-your-own-fruit-this-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Tins for the next three days, fruit trees for the next thirty years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why bare-root season is the time to start growing your own fruit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A stack of tins will see you through three days of trouble; a fruit tree planted this winter will feed you for thirty years or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 22 October the Cabinet Office launched Be Ready<\/a>, a three-year campaign asking every household to keep enough water and non-perishable food to manage three days without power, water or phone signal. You may already have done your bit. Shoppers certainly have: tinned food, bottled water and wind-up radios have been vanishing from supermarket shelves, and somewhere in Britain a cupboard is now stacked to the ceiling with baked beans. We’re in no position to judge: beans on toast is the unofficial lunch of the Ashridge office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advice is sensible, and nothing here argues with it. Storms, floods and power cuts happen, and a well-stocked cupboard is the right answer to them. But the campaign has got a lot of people thinking about where their food comes from, and that is a question a garden can answer far better than a supermarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fruit tree<\/a> won’t help you through next week’s storm. What it will do, given a winter planting and a little patience, is put food on your table every autumn for decades, food you have grown, chosen and know the provenance of. If you have been meaning to plant one and never quite got round to it, this is the winter to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fruit<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why now: bare-root season has just begun<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

November to March is bare-root season, and it is the best time of year to plant fruit. Bare-root plants are dug from the field while dormant and sent to you with no pot and no compost, just roots wrapped to keep them moist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They cost less than pot-grown plants, often a good deal less, because you aren’t paying for a pot, compost and a year in a container. They also establish better. Planted into cold, damp winter soil, the roots settle in and start growing before the leaves make any demands, so by spring the tree is ready to get on with it rather than sulking through its first summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The window closes when the buds break, usually in late March. Miss it and you are left with pot-grown plants at a higher price, or waiting until next November. Plant this winter and soft fruit<\/a> will crop next summer; apple<\/a> and pear trees<\/a> on dwarfing rootstocks will start giving you fruit within two or three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bareroot<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What to plant for a fuller larder<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If the point is a fuller store cupboard, choose fruit that keeps, freezes or preserves well. A dessert apple eaten off the tree in September is a pleasure, but a crop that lasts into the new year does more for the larder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n