Orchard help

zcrat41

Hello people,

On our farm is an old orchard.

It's my favourite place on the farm and I love it. Last year for the first time I made a mountain of jam and crumbles from the fruit.

Problem is, no one has done anything to it or looked after it in about 20 years. Apart from mow the grass that is.

There are about 8 trees, 3 apple, 1 pear, 3 plum and a cherry tree. The pear tree and 1 apple tree go back to at least 1947 when my grandparents bought the farm.

I want to be able to maintain the orchard well as I love the thought that If I have kids they can eat pears from their great grandad's pear tree!

I've bought books on fruit but they don't really tell me what to do.

Should I prune? There's quite a lot of dead wood, especially in the main apple tree which is about 25ft high with a huge canopy.

Does anyone have any experience or could suggest any books I could get some tips from?

Thanks

ZC!

blossomhill_2

Hi
I managed an old (Victorian) orchard so have a little experience but we tended to leave well alone - my first step for you would be to cut out any obviously diseased wood, and lop any dangerous branches, and to get the trees identified by taking (for each variety) a couple of leaves, some fruit and a photo of the tree along to an apple day (it is possible that Brogdale do this too, Wisley's wasn't detailed enough when I went along) - once you know what you have you will be able to look up individual varieties to see how best to manage them

Lovely idea BTW!

In the longer term you may like to look into having stock from your trees grafted onto modern root stocks so that the tree lives on even if the tree folds in time

Although the orchard was stocked in 1947 (which in the grand scheme is not that long ago) your g'pa may have sourced older or even local varieties that are no longer available so you may find you have a heritage variety on your hands that could be commercially exploited on a small scale and bring you a little income/local interest, as it will be suited to local growing conditions

HTH, please let us know how it goes

PS - I would also look at planting a few new ones too (probably dwarf varieties) now so they can be fruiting by the time your kids are hatched, (and swapping the mowing for sheep and chickens!), so YOUR great grandkids can eat from a tree that you planted!

RAS

Hi

Are you far enough north to join the Northern Fruit Group? http://www.northernfruitgroup.org.uk/

They don't really do web-site but they do renovate old orchards.

The basics are

1. Remove the dead and diseased wood
2. Remove one large branch from the centre of the tree to open up the canopy.

Next year

Remove any watershoots (they will spring straight up from the central branches)
Take out any branches that reach to the sky, preferably back to another branch (horizontal) about one third of the thickness.

lostinrates

Zcrat, i too am facing farmer neglected trees, sadly not in their own orchard, but i am planting one of them either side of the tractor track out to the fields.

We have greengage ( needs no attention) asdorted plums some doing well and sone frankly worthless, and three apples. The two better tended apples i started with the first winter, cutting out a lot to star trying to restore a goblet shape. The bigger third tree i think may be too far gone. The apples are none of them that great and i presume the hig tree is a vider apple...its certainly not an eater! I can bear to lose it. What i plan to do however, is practise on it......making cuts i might not be bold enough to so with the others.

I am also pleach some pears. I know i have made sone wrong cats there, but after a fraught self flagilating afternoon i decided i had to learn somehow and the trees would grow shoots to replace what i should not have removed....and that is just what they are doing! So, be brave. The hardest thing i think, is a totally misshape tree where restoring it will not leave a perfect orchard shape however you try, so one needs to try and visualise the best possible for that tree. I find that hard. I also have 'favourite' branches i know i should cut out to get a better shape tree but cannot quite bring myself to......

zcrat41

Thank you very much for some fab advice.

Sadly, we're in East Anglia so too far for the Northern fruit group.

Lostinrates - I love your idea of practising on one or 2 not so important ones!

Blossomhill - love the grafting idea and thank you for the tips and tricks you have passed on. I have literally just found out I'm pregnant (!!!) and it might be nice to start a new family tradition of planting fruit trees!

cootambear

zcrat41 wrote: »

Thank you very much for some fab advice.

Sadly, we're in East Anglia so too far for the Northern fruit group.

Lostinrates - I love your idea of practising on one or 2 not so important ones!

Blossomhill - love the grafting idea and thank you for the tips and tricks you have passed on. I have literally just found out I'm pregnant (!!!) and it might be nice to start a new family tradition of planting fruit trees!

pollination works!

joke aside, congrats!