Planting Fruit Trees - Advice Please

kazire

I am looking for a cooking apple tree that i can keep in a container/pot as am renting at the mo and want to take any plants of mine with me when i move, anyone got any ideas obvioulsy not looking to spend a huge amount hence being on the moneysaving forum.

thanks

Fluffysheep38

Thank you Raz, thats perfect, just what I wanted

Cheers!

cootambear

valk_scot wrote: »

Several trees? How big a garden do you have, and how many apples do you want?

My back garden is 45' x 20' and we inherited three apple trees and a pear tree when we moved in. One apple tree gives me about 300-400 good sized apples every year, and it's only about 15' tall. No2 tree gives me another 100 or so, No3 about 50. I can hardly give apples away fast enough at this time of year and if it wasn't for a friend owning a herd of goats that like apples I'd have had to put a lot of them into the compost. None of the above varieties store and they are pretty boring for cooking. I did make 40 jars of apple jelly for various school sales and dried a few pounds of them.

The pear tree (some sort of Conference) gives me 30-40 pears in a poor year and at least a hundred in a good one. It's only about eight feet high. It's a poor year this year so I won't have to find out if goats like pears too.

By contrast I planted a family apple tree on my allotment, after my then 7 year old son spotted it for 50p in the Woolworths Reduced to Clear bin. It's about 5' high and has Russets, Golden Delicious and some sort of Cox on the three grafts. (I'm guessing the varieties but these are close.) I get about 20-30 apples of each variety and they're nice apples. That one tree would have given me more than enough apples tbh, even with four of us in the family.

So when you're thinking of "several" apple trees, ask yourself what you're going to do with several hundred apples.

You could ask a wine/scrumpy maker to take them away in exchange for a drop or two.

rhiwfield

When planting fruit trees and hedging I've used rootgrow, seems to work as I've planted over 100 bare root trees in last few years and all have survived.

Mojisola

rhiwfield wrote: »

When planting fruit trees and hedging I've used rootgrow, seems to work as I've planted over 100 bare root trees in last few years and all have survived.

I used it last year when I had to plant roses in ground that had been growing roses for years. Usually that's a problem but they've all done very well this year.

As Fluffysheep38 is planting into very poor soil, it would be worth giving the trees an extra boost.

valk_scot

cootambear wrote: »

You could ask a wine/scrumpy maker to take them away in exchange for a drop or two.

I did have a friend that made cider and also a very good rhubarb wine from my surplus rhubarb but unfortunately he's moved a couple of hundred miles away, inconsiderate so and so. But I'm working on finding a replacement.

rhosynbach

We have planted 40 fruit trees over 5 years all but one have fruited within 2 years including this year getting peaches and apricots and they did not come from a nusery but from lidl and aldi and i mixed cheap multi purpose compost in to the holes (we also have poor infilled land ) and have fed with horse manure. one apple tree had over 40 apples on and we have only had it 2 years so very pleased as most of them have paid for themselves already.

cootambear

valk_scot wrote: »

I did have a friend that made cider and also a very good rhubarb wine from my surplus rhubarb but unfortunately he's moved a couple of hundred miles away, inconsiderate so and so. But I'm working on finding a replacement.

I`ve never had it but I bet rhubarb champagne tastes delicious.

RAS

valk_scot wrote: »

I did have a friend that made cider and also a very good rhubarb wine from my surplus rhubarb but unfortunately he's moved a couple of hundred miles away, inconsiderate so and so. But I'm working on finding a replacement.

Have you encountered any of these sort of groups:

http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/features/10671.html

http://www.leedsurbanharvest.org.uk/


There may be one near you that would pick and process your fruit in exchange for some of the crop.