Kitchen Garden Magazine

Grow your own fruit and veg with the UK's No. 1 Kitchen Garden magazine

Fruit of the month

Apples are still our favourite tree fruit and can be grown in many areas of the UK very successfully. As with most trees, shelter is important since the flowers are easily damaged by spring frosts and apples do not thrive in poorly drained soil.
Choosing the variety is very important. The main considerations are flavour, whether you want a dessert or culinary variety and whether you require good keeping qualities. Some varieties, such as ‘Katy’ and ‘Herefordshire Russet’, are better for northern gardens.

You will then have to select the type of tree – whether you have the space for a bush tree, dwarf bush or cordon etc and which rootstock it should be grafted on to. The rootstock influences how large the tree will grow and perhaps the most popular for smaller modern gardens is M26, which produces a tree growing to 2.5-3.5m (8-12ft tall). If you can accommodate a larger tree (which will produce larger crops) look for a tree grafted on MM106.
Finally, you need to consider a pollination partner for your tree – unless there are trees on adjacent plots or gardens which flower at the same time – and these can include crab apples. A few varieties are self-fertile, but if possible it is still better to have a pollination partner as you will get more reliable crops as a result.

If you have room for more than one tree or for a number of cordons, then try and select varieties to give a range of flavours and picking times and, of course, which are in the same pollination group (which flower at the same time) to ensure fruit.
Plant your tree as described in ‘Tree fruit’ on page 19, taking care to improve poorly drained soils with plenty of grit and well rotted organic matter.

Pruning requirements after planting will depend on the age of the tree purchased. Generally it is better to pay a little more for a tree which is two or even three years old and has already had some initial training since there is less to do and you can harvest fruit that much earlier. In this case pruning simply consists of cutting back the branches to half their length.

For more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!

Copyright information

All content is ©copyright Mortons Media Group 2008 • Organic Gardening magazine | Subscribe | Buy current issue