Fruit Trees

When establishing fruit trees, all the usual tree-planting rules apply, plus a few more.

Once the trees begin to bear fruit you'll be taking it away to eat, so the fruit trees will need regular feeding to replace the lost nutrients. Easy access is therefore important, both for management and for harvesting. There is a large variety of fruit trees to choose from, and making a selection requires some restraint and common sense.

Start by considering which fruits you most enjoy. It also makes sense to go for special varieties. Remember that home-grown fruit is often tastier than commercially grown fruit.

Consider the size and shape of the tree. With fruit trees as with any other trees, appearances affect the design of your garden. Apart from the "natural" shape of a fruit tree, however, many varieties can not only be trained into extraordinary shapes but positively thrive on manipulation, so they can be used to create special visual effects.

Orchard planning

Key points to remember include the following:

• Bees are critical. It's essential they come to pollinate the blossom. Siting beehives in an orchard is an ancient practice but, because many fruit trees bloom early in the year—before honey bees become most active—bumble bees often do most of the work. Early-flowering weeds and herbs can attract and sustain bumble bees.

• Early flowering makes fruit trees susceptible to frost. Therefore avoid siting your orchard in a frost pocket. If frost does strike, the worst damage is done during sudden thaws, so westerly exposure is better than easterly; easterly exposure catches the early sun.

• A border of bramble, nuts, and berries provides shelter, encourages bees, and distracts pests; it also sustains the natural enemies of pests.

• Grease bands catch wingless female moths as they crawl up the tree trunk to lay their eggs, without any risk to bees or other beneficial insects.

• One can get pheromones—insect "musk"specific to particular pests—from some organic garden suppliers. One can use pheromones to lure pests into traps.

• Many birds (but not pigeons) work through all the hours of daylight, feeding orchard pests to their young. Nest boxes to attract these birds.

• Chickens will turn leather jackets and wireworms into wholesome, golden-yolked eggs for you. Site your hen house in the orchard.

• Bats do the same job at night that birds do during the day. Attach bat boxes to your orchard trees.

• Nettles are said to help deter pests and diseases; they also to improve the "keeping" properties of fruit. Allow them to grow around the edge of your orchard.

• Grass and some weeds can compete with trees, especially when they're young. Keep a ring (ideally, 3 ft or l m wide) around each tree, weed-free, preferably by mulching (or by cutting the grass there very, very short). Alternatively, sow non-greedy annual ground-cover flowering plants (e.g., nasturtiums) around the trees.

• Geese keep grass closely cropped.

• Healthy trees resist disease. Keep your trees well-fed and stress-free.

Soft fruit

Soft fruits require more effort than do tree fruits.

Soft fruits need to be trained, pruned, fed and watered, and weeded. The cropping season tends to be short and, if this coincides with a spell of unsuitable weather, you can lose an entire crop. Another problem is that, when the fruit ripens, early birds can strip your bushes before you've got out of bed.
When deciding which soft fruits to grow, the two most important considerations are how much you enjoy the fruit and how much use you can make of a glut.

Preparation and planting

Soft fruits need good, rich, loamy soil. Although their potassium requirements are particularly heavy, this is best supplied by digging in rock potash before planting rather than scattering wood ashes later on.

As with any perennial planting, remove all perennial weeds before establishing fruit bushes. In order to ensure that the ground is totally clear, leave two months between preparation and planting. Plant in the autumn.

Small plants arc better to begin with than bigger ones, and they should be well spaced to take account of their eventual size. Most kinds require severe pruning after planting.

Weeding

Keep the ground weed-free with a thick layer of mulch. If weeding becomes necessary, do it by hand: hoeing can damage the shallow roots most fruit bushes possess.

Feeding

Soft fruit bushes produce a great deal of fruit. They also losing nutrients each time they're pruned. Therefore they need to be well fed. 2 in mulch (possibly underneath; round-cover mulch) helps to keep up the level of nutrients in the soil. Feeding in spring with seaweed- or comfrey-based liquid helps to improve disease resistance.

Coping with birds

The traditional method of protecting soft fruit from birds is to plant it in a cage. This is expensive but it gives total security.

A cage works both ways, however. Birds are seriously dedicated to finding food, and a bird has all day to ponder the problem of how to get at a feast—so if there's a flaw in our cage, a bird will probably find it. And if the bird does get in, it probably won't be able to get out, so it will ransack your crop and damage itself.

Another potential danger to birds is that their feet can get entangled in the netting.

So if you do adopt a fruit cage, ensure it is well designed, well made, well maintained, and bird-proof. At the same time, of course, ensure it is easy for you to get in and out of.

Cheap alternatives to fruit cages include the following:

• Planting fruit bushes beside a wall, so that a net can be draped across during high-risk periods. This also allows you to drape frost protection if necessary.

• Constructing a temporary cage around harvest time. Use plastic netting, draped over a framework of bean poles (attach yoghurt pots to prevent the net from sliding down the vertical poles).

• Threading a random web of black cotton among the bushes. This is feasible only for a very small fruit patch, carries a risk of trapping birds, and gives only partial protection. It works well with gooseberries, though. (There arc commercial versions of this method, under various names.)

• Delaying pruning until the buds have begun to open. This reduces the damage done by bud-peckers such as bullfinches.
Bear in mind that any netting you use must have large enough mesh to permit pollinating insects to enter.

Vines

The main difference between vines and ether woody plants is that vines aren't self-supporting; they exploit other structures. This habit makes them useful for covering ugly structures. Some vines climb by twining; others have suckers or tendrils.

When planting vines, prepare the ground as for trees (see ***). Ornamental vines intended to cover unattractive features already in place should be planted far enough from their intended support to give them root space. This is because the soil at the base of walls and other support structures is often dry; it can also be densely compacted.

Fruiting vines

Select ornamental vines on the basis of suitability for the job. Select fruiting vines according to the desirability of their fruit. It may be necessary to adjust soil conditions to suit the variety you wish to grow.

Grape, kiwi, and passion fruit are perennial species that can be both ornamental and fruitful. Where these fruits are grown commercially, they are generally ruthlessly pruned to increase crop density and ease of harvesting. For the home gardener, such ruthless pruning is unnecessary: all three vines can do triple duty by giving the garden a combination of shade, interest, and delicious fruit.

Soil

Grape vines are a good choice if your soil is poor but well drained (stony rather than sandy).

When preparing ground for grapes, try to create a mixture of stones and humus to start the vines off. On poor soil, add wood ash and some bone meal at planting time. If the soil at large is heavy, this might be an advantage in the long run, provided that good drainage can be arranged while the vines become established. At this time, "mulch" with stones rather than compost; slate is ideal, as it later reflects heat onto the fruit, helping it to ripen.

Sunlight

The amount of sugar that grapes produce depends on the amount of sunlight they receive, especially later in the summer, so that sweet dessert grapes are likely to succeed only in very sunny situations. Wine-making grapes ripen more easily. There is an enormous variety to choose from; the best type to go for is one that is known to do well in your particular locality.

Planting and training

After planting in autumn, cut each young vine back to just above the third bud. Next spring, if all three buds have survived, two should be rubbed out to allow one good, strong stem to grow. This is the foundation of your grape vine, and its future management depends largely on what you want it to do for you.
Any book on viticulture gives detailed, step-by-step directions for a range of varieties in a selection of styles.

If you're growing for fruit the vine must be strictly disciplined and then have its developing berries thinned out; this allows the optimum number to reach their potential. If you're growing for shade, the vine can be given its head—or at least allowed to keep it—and any grapes you get will he a bonus. Between these two extremes, adopt whatever pattern suits your taste

A low cordon of fruit-priority vines can be trained on to three horizontal wires stretched between two posts. In this situation, the vine roots aren't impeded in any way. Grapes grow wide-ranging roots, so, if they are to be trained up a wall, they should be planted at least a foot (30 cm) away.

Maintenance

Mulching mature vines with compost in the winter (widely, to feed those widespread roots) encourages strong growth. Foliar seaweed-based spray during the summer helps feed developing fruit; it also stimulates resistance to pests, mildews, moulds, and other ills.

This problem should be given serious consideration at the start. When shopping around for suitable varieties, make hardiness and disease resistance a priority. If you choose to experiment with vulnerable varieties, you should be prepared for a succession of battles and disappointments.