Last Of The Rhubarb

Our eldest was keen to make a crumble for tea yesterday and was keen to see if we still had some rhubarb growing we could use. 

The usual advice is not to pick it too late as it weakens plant. But we have three huge plants and haven't taken any this year, so it won't do it any harm. It was starting to die back anyway. 

Perfect Day Planting Trees

I woke up this morning with a long list of jobs I wanted to get done, and although I didn't manage most of them I still feel that it was a really good day.
It started off with my children giving my wife their cards and mothers day presents before texting my own mum (and speaking to her at a more sociable hour later). Then it was on to tree planting (my mum is coming round later in the week).

These first two pics are from Friday night where we just popped over to plant a couple of trees

I had a few trees left over from the ones I was selling and I didn't want them to go to waste, nor did I want to replant them only to lift them next year so I decide to plant them in our little coppice. Reading Tracy's blog the other day, when she asked if you could ever have enough apple trees really spurred me into action - you can never have enough apple trees! 

I thought that planted down the fence line they would be away from the willow I've got growing but also produce lots of food. I also like the idea of having two areas of apples away from each other so that if the frost catches one it might miss the other.

Good concentration putting the rabbit guard on! 

So armed with a spade, some BF&B (blood, fish and bone), compost (just a little for the bottom of the hole), tree guards, cardboard (to make a little mulch mat around the bottom of the tree) and a load of trees I set off over to the coppice. 

Trees planted with a cardboard mulch mat under it. The tree behind isn't exactly straight but who wants straight trees!??!

 At the top of this area there is a foot path so I thought it best to plant the cider trees up this end - it might discourage scrumpers, you normally only eat a cider apple off the tree once! The lower half would have eating apples, mainly with a long storage capacity as I want to store more apples and it would mean that I could harvest lots of apples in one go then.

Gooseberry bush being carried off to be put in the coppice

I went over on my own to start with, dug all the holes (the boring bit) and then went and got my pair of helpers, they love planting trees and needed no convincing to come and help me. 

They're very good and take it in turns with the different jobs. We also stopped lots of times to watch ants, worms and figure out what lived in a hole in a big old perry pear tree in the hedge. 

One holes the tree while the other puts the soil back in the hole.

Taking turns!

We did spend a bit of time trying to decide who lived in this hole!

Eaters planted this side and cider apples nearer the footpath (behind this picture) - should put off scrumpers! 

Once we'd finished that area and had some lunch I got back to planting. 

Five cherry trees planted and two apricots. 

The orchard at the bottom of the garden is only half full at the moment as it's handy to have somewhere I can park large diggers and things, but last year I did plant a cherry tree near the fence line. I decided to increase this and plant another five cherry trees and a couple of apricots, they're all on dwarf root stocks so I'm hoping that netting a short row like this won't be too difficult in the future. We love cherries!

In total we planted another 12 apple trees, two pears, five cherries, two apricots and a gooseberry bush.

The funniest question people ask me about my apple trees is what am I going to do with "all those apples"? 

In a good year we'll eat loads, store loads, make juice, dry them, can them, make cider, add them to jams and chutneys and give away or sell the surplus.

In a bad year we'll have just enough to get by, hopefully!

What about you? Have you planted enough to allow for bad years as well as good if you've got the space?

What would be your fruit of choice to plant in your area or your dream location?

Reverend W Wilkes

We're starting to get some apples and other fruit ready in the orchard and cordons.

Mum brought over a big bag of discovery apples but a few cookers are ready as well. Warmers King is normally the first we eat but this year we've also got some Reverend W Wilkes from my line of cordons. 

IIt's a slightly acidic cooking apple that is ready to use when it's slightly premature.  This one lifted off the tree with only the slightest bit of weight behind it. Like all early apples it won't keep,  but I've got plenty for that purpose, having an apple ready at the same time as the blackberries has it's advantages.

Its a spur bearer and slow grower, so perfect for a cordon if you're limited on space.

What early cooking apples do you have growing?

Pitmaston Pineapple

Our own apple trees are still too young to give us much of a crop yet so we're still relying on apples from my parents and from our friends in the village who have a good sized orchard.

You'd be forgiven for thinking these apples were crab apples but they're not!

 Our apples of choice at the moment are Pitmaston Pineapple. They are small, crab apple sized fruits that taste amazing, nothing like a pineapple but a beautifully sharp, almost nutty flavour. The trees are laden with fruit every year, covering it in almost grape like amounts, and due to the small size of the fruit they are perfect for little hands. The girls love them, Evalyn has created a fruit course after most meals and I have to fight them off Melissa on a regular basis. I'm eating about four or five in one sitting as well!

If dad won't let you have any more apples, just have a raw potato instead!

I'd recommend this tree to anyone that wants a small tasty apple that keeps until Chirstmas. It also  has one of the most interesting names out there for an apple, who could fail to be impressed if you offered a guest a Pitmastons Pineapple from your fruit bowl?

Cordons - Summer pruning Year 2

A follow on from my post around this time last year.

My cordon apple trees have put on loads of growth again this year so last week I went back through them.

 I tied in the leader and cut back any growth to a couple of inches from the cut last year. This should encourage it to branch out and form fruiting spurs. the fruit will always be close to the tree with cordons. I've had some lovely and perfect apples off a few of the trees so I'm expecting great things!

They look nice and tidy again now they've been pruned. In years to come this is going to make a great divide between the field and the garden. I think there's 24 varieties of apple down this stretch so far with space to plant a few more.

Nibbled

I was a little disappointed to find that at the base of a few of the trees they were showing chew marks. Some little creature has been chewing them. I think it's mice as the garden is rabbit proof, but I've done myself no favours by letting it get so weedy under the trees, giving the little critters perfect protection from predators. Next year I must stay on top of weeding them better and mulch around the trees early on, I might also put a few traps down.    

Anyone else got mice problems in the garden? And has anyone else got cordon apple trees in?

Fruit Tree Nursery 2014

Last weekend I finally managed to finish grafting and planting all of my fruit trees.

 I planted them in two separate beds quite close together to try to encourage them to grow straight and true. I 've also experimented a little bit as one lot was planted through some old weed suppressant matting I had left from ages ago and the other will be mulched with straw

In these two little beds is hopefully my future cider orchard, some apricots and nectarines to see if I can get them to grow in our cold spot, cherries so we can have delicious stone fruit in the summer, plums and pears to grow around the veg garden and some more apple trees to grow and sell.

140 in total this year, should be interesting to see how they do.

Did anyone else get round to doing any grafting this year?

Homemade Bird Apple Feeder

In the UK it was Mothers Day yesterday. It's always tricky to know what to get my mother and as my two girls are too young to get anything for my wife that responsibility falls to me as well. They're both good mothers though so I don't mind!

 I decided to make something that they would both like. An apple bird feeder as they both enjoy watching the birds at their bird tables.

 I started with some oak off cuts (from a job a few weeks ago, destined for the fire), I drew out the shape of an apple, and with my drawing skills this was no mean feat, then cut it out with the jig saw.

 This was quite hard going as oak is never the easiest wood to cut. I had to spend quite a bit of time sanding it up afterwards. I then cut the top to a nice angle, added a bottom so they birds had somewhere to land.

 I then drilled a hole either side for the bamboo skewer and a hole at the top for hanging it up.

 I then gave them a coat of oil and hung them up to dry.

Hopefully the birds will be able to enjoy some of our old apples and we'll be able to enjoy watching them!

Both mothers seemed please with the gifts. Anyone else made a mothers day gift this year?

Storing Grafting Wood

In the fridge, above the yogurts and beside the butter, there is a bag of wood.

Keeping this sort of thing in our fridge is not completely unusual in our house.

The bags contain scion wood of 18 different varieties of apple, cherry, apricot, plum and pear trees that I will use for grafting at the end of this month. Each variety is stored with a wet bit of newspaper around it's base and then wrapped in cling film with a label stating what tree it is. I check these every few weeks to make sure they haven't dried out and they are kept so they won't ever freeze.

I found quite a bit of conflicting information about storing scion wood on a small scale so I hope this is the best way. Anyone else storing scion wood at the moment?