Monday 2 March 2020

Planting 40 Plum Trees!

It's not been ideal conditions for planting trees, really the ground is too wet - but as they say time waits for no man so I decided we'd get them in and see what happened. 

Helpers - my eldest was poorly. 
To start with we planted up a new hedge between us and the neighbours. For this we used cherry plum trees, just little whips, and every 10ft put in a Victoria plum (they were £5) as a standard. Not sure how this will turn out but it should be interesting. I've read lots of people saying it makes a good edible hedge but when asked no one seems to have tried it!



Pretending to be trees...



I think I might need to buy a few more trees next year as the hedge seems a little thin but I'll wait to see how they grow first.


Once we got these in we moved on to the other varieties of plum tree. I had a few that were to be planted in different locations. One at the back of my workshop, south facing so I hope these will be nice and early! And a few other plums in the grid pattern of my orchard to fill in a few gaps.



Then the last 10 were planted in a line in the orchard in a bit of an experiment in spacing. I decided to fit them in to plant them in a line a bit closer than I would normally and I'll just have to keep on top of the pruning.


I've planted these so that the top is the earliest ripening and as you go down the row they ripen later and later in the season. Should be interesting but no idea how well it will work when the trees get bigger. I've seen commercial orchards plant much closer than we would normally so hopefully it should be fine.

Really pleased with all the fruit I've added this year and there's still more to come! I've just ordered 10 gooseberries and 10 blackcurrants and have some others sat here ready to plant out, black raspberries, white blackberries, mulberries and others. I need to keep growing unusual veg for my garden club talks after all!

What fruit have you planted this year?

Is there any gaps in your fruit growing that you want to fill?

8 comments:

  1. I would just love more space to have fruit tree's.

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    1. Having the space to plant is great, although each year I think I can't fit any more in and then come up with a new idea to squeeze them in!

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  2. Hi Kev, The kids will love the cherry plum fruits they are really gorgeous. I have found them locally in the wild near where I live. You can use them as ordinary plums and preserve them for the pantry shelf as well. There is another version much nearer to where we live and it is hit and miss whether we get them or not as we are in competition with not only the birds but the local Polish who make a flavoured brandy from the fruit. This is a bright yellow miniature plum known as a Mirabelle. They are also lush. If and when I ever get my dream home I had planned on planting cherry plums, elderflower/elderberry, crab apples, hawthorn, haw and blackthorn. You will not regret planting the cherry plums. You and the birds will be in competition though as they like them too. Tricia

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    1. I'm looking froward to it! we have lots of elderberry as well but only tend to harvest every other year when we don't trim the hedges. I hope we get enough to preserve some in the future! The birds will be fat around here the amount of fruit I have in! I bet they still strip it all though!

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  3. you will have so many plums! my mother used to can them whole and they were lovely. i love gooseberries and have grown them myself.

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    1. Someone said to me the other day what will we do with them all. I always reply that on a bad year we might have just enough and on the good years we can do what we like with them - preserve them, eat them freshm cook with them , sell them, give them away or just let them rot their goodness back into the ground!
      I do just love the fruit so I hope we have plenty of good years!
      As for Gooseberries I love them - I was reading the other day that in the US blackberries were banned for a long time and as such they never really caught on - do you have any growing?

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  5. Hi Kev, The kids are so cute and gorgeous and I am sure they are going to love the cherry plum fruits. Hoping that you find the best fruits this year and you find joy harvesting those, I would love to see the pictures of your harvest. Happy Gardening !!! Good Luck 😊 For more updates please visit us at https://www.bloghasting.com/

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