Best Gardening Guide

Manuring is an important means of ensuring the healthy growth of fruit plants and of regulating vegetative growth, fruit yield and quality. Each kind of fruit has its own requirements for manures and what is best for plums and black currants will not give the best results for apples, gooseberries and strawberries. This post deals with general principles only and should be read in conjunction with the special recommendations for individual crops.

The main manures for fruits contain nitrogen, phosphate and potash. Potash is of outstanding importance for all fruits, phosphates are not so important for the tree fruits and the needs for nitrogen vary. For example, plums and black currants benefit from heavy dressings of nitrogen, but generous nitrogenous manuring for apples, raspberries and strawberries may make the plants over-vegetative and reduce yield and fruit quality.

A balance must be kept between shoot growth and fruiting, with the aim of obtaining heavy crops of good quality for successive years. This can only be achieved by careful manuring, combined with other management practices, and in particular by the prevention of mineral deficiencies and excesses.

No fruits are real lime-loving plants, not even the stone fruits. Most prefer slightly acid soil conditions, or soils with only small supplies of free lime in them, whilst some fruits will grow well on strongly acid soils provided they are well manured. The great danger from overtiming arises in the fact that fruit crops are very susceptible to deficiencies of the so-called trace elements, particularly iron and manganese, and in a soil of high lime content these two elements may become unavailable to the plant.

A first principle in growing fruits should be to avoid highly calcareous soils and to be sparing in applying lime. Lime should only be applied if the soil is very acid.

The second point to stress is the importance of organic matter in fruit soils. Fruit plants must have a free-rooting medium for healthy growth and longevity, and this can be assured only by maintaining a good content of organic matter. For tree fruits such as apples and pears, this may be best achieved by growing the trees in grass after the first 3 or 4 years in clean cultivation, or by dressings of bulky composts or manures used as surface mulches. The grass and other organic materials must be kept clear of the tree trunk. For soft fruits the usual method is to dig in bulky manures or compost before planting.

It is usually necessary to use concentrated organic manures or inorganic fertilisers in addition to bulky manures to supply the right amount of nutrients needed. Any of the usual manures and fertilisers used for other crops are suitable, though a few precautions are necessary in some cases to avoid injury. All chloride-containing fertilisers, such as muriate of potash, should be used with caution, or not at all, on soft fruits, particularly red currants. Manures and fertilisers should be applied to the soil, and late winter and early spring – February and March – are the best times to apply them.

Excessive manuring, especially with nitrogen, is shown by over-vigorous growth, large dark green leaves, poor fruiting or large, poor-quality fruits.

All hardy fruits with the possible exception of figs, need to have the site deeply dug and thoroughly prepared. With shallow soils it is almost impossible to grow good fruit over a number of years unless the subsoil is well broken up. Deep digging should not be carried out close to the roots of any fruit bushes or trees after planting. Soft fruits are surface rooting and much harm is done by digging too near the roots. The sites must therefore be thoroughly prepared before planting and all perennial weeds removed. The land should be well drained and there should never be stagnant water on the site.

The types of soil which suit individual fruits are referred to in the text; where the soil is not of a type likely to be suitable, efforts should be made to improve it when the ground is first dug and prepared, but no manure should be in contact with the roots at planting.

Digging one spit deep. This consists of breaking up the soil to the depth of a spade or a fork. A trench is taken out and the soil from the next strip is turned over into the trench.

If manure is to be applied it is a good plan to spread it over the ground to be dug to ensure even distribution, leaving the breadth of the first spade-cut clear of manure. When the strip has been dug and the soil removed, the manure from the next strip to the width of a spade should be placed in the trench, laying it on the sloping surface. Then the next strip of soil should be turned over into the trench, burying the manure, which is evenly distributed in the soil from the bottom of the trench almost to the surface.

Double-digging cultivated ground. Divide the plot into two, and mark out the boundary and dividing lines with a spade; then take out a trench, 2 feet (60 cm.) wide, and with vertical sides, to the depth of the spade at the end of one half of the plot. The soil should be placed at the same end of the plot, but opposite the other half, where it will be ready to fill in the last trench. Then break up the bottom of the trench to the full depth of a fork. Take care to break up the soil in the middle and the sides of the trench. Next, a second strip of exactly the same width should be marked off, and for this purpose it is a good plan to keep a stick cut to the right length at each side of the ground which is being trenched. Put the line across at the end of your sticks to mark how broad the next trench is to be. Then take out the second trench, placing the soil from it on to the broken-up bottom of the first trench. A trench 2 feet (60 cm.) wide can be conveniently worked in three spits. Each time the first of the three spits to be moved should be the one farthest from the trench which is being filled in, and it should be placed so that it forms a good wall to the second trench. Then the second and third spits may be removed. The second trench, like the first, should be to the full depth of a spade before the bottom is broken up. To do this, it will be necessary to remove the ‘crumbs’ from the second trench with a shovel. When this has been done, the bottom of the second trench is broken up with a fork, and filled with the soil from the third and so on.

When manure is to be applied in double-digging, it should be spread over the broken-up bottom of the trench, and forked into the loose soil there. The manure may be spread over the ground in the same way as for single-digging, but each time before a top strip of soil is moved into the trench the manure is transferred to the broken-up bottom of the trench.

As a rule, the amateur fruit-grower has little choice of soil or even site. He has to accept the soil and site on which his house is built. If, however, he wishes to plan his garden to the best advantage, he must know the conditions that suit the different kinds of fruit. The conditions most favorable for soft fruit are described under each fruit.

Apples, pears, plums and other top fruits can all be grown successfully on many different types of soil, but the ideal one is probably a slightly acid, fairly deep, well-drained, medium loam. Dessert apples, especially ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’, require the best positions, soils and drainage. Pears are rather less tolerant of very dry conditions than are apples. Plums and cooking apples can be grown satisfactorily in a wider range of soils and conditions. Heavy soils will give good results, provided drainage is good and the ground is well prepared with the subsoil thoroughly broken up. Gravel and chalk soils are not good, but if they are well trenched and plenty of dung or composted material is incorporated with the subsoil, results may be reasonable. Light, dry soils present a problem, but here again generous applications of organic manures or compost before planting will help considerably.

Frost can have a serious effect on fruit. Cold air, being heavier than warmer air, tends to collect in pockets in low-lying ground, particularly in valleys where there is no outlet for it. Such frost pockets should be avoided if possible. It is very difficult to obtain regular crops in such situations without elaborate precautions. Some cultivars of fruits are less prone to frost damage and these are indicated in the lists of recommended cultivars. In the case of cordons and small trees some protection against late spring frosts can be given with sacking, frost proof mats or hessian supported on a framework, but this must be made very secure so that the blossoms or young fruitlets are not damaged.

Probably most gardeners can devote only a modest area of land to a fruit garden and so it is important to make the fullest possible use of the space available. In a new garden some part of it should be marked off for use only for growing fruit. The planting of bushes and trees should be planned and not done in a haphazard way as in so many old gardens. The number of bushes and trees to be planted depends not only on the size of the fruit garden but also on the cultivars selected, on the rootstocks on which the top fruits, i.e. apples, pears, plums and peaches, are grown, and on the form of trees and method of pruning which may be adopted. The main points to be observed are:

1. grouping together of the same kinds of fruit;
2. proportions of the areas to be devoted to soft and tree fruits;
3. rootstocks for the tree fruits;
4. shapes and types of tree and methods of pruning.

By grouping together the same kinds of fruit, spraying is made easier. It is also an advantage to keep together those fruits which have the same manurial requirements. For instance, apples, gooseberries and red currants need plenty of potash, whilst pears, plums and black currants require more nitrogen.

The question of the proportion of soft fruits to tree fruits is largely one of personal taste, but with a very small garden it might be best to grow mainly soft fruits with a single row of apples or pears on dwarfing rootstocks. When possible wall or fence space should also be used.

Large free-growing trees are unsuitable for most small gardens. With cordons, dwarf pyramids and other trained forms of trees which require a restrictive type of pruning, it is possible to grow many more trees in a given area and so obtain a wider variety to spread the season than could be grown if bush trees were planted.

The purchase of good healthy stock is one of the secrets of success. In soft fruits vigour may be considerably reduced through infection with virus diseases and the Ministry of Agriculture has a scheme for inspecting and granting certificates to stocks of disease-free black currants, strawberries and raspberries. Where possible always buy this Certified Stock.

Virus diseases also affect the growth and crop of tree fruits, but in recent years, nurseries have been able to obtain virus-tested cultivars and rootstocks as ‘mother’ trees which can be used for propagation. Trees of many cultivars of apple, plum, pear and cherry from these healthy sources are now available from some nurserymen.