Best Gardening Guide » plums

Point of Nutrition

The Gardener — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:55:19 +0000

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.

Soils and Conditions of the Site

The Gardener — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:33:15 +0000

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.

Fruit Garden Planning

The Gardener — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:13:25 +0000

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:

grouping together of the same kinds of fruit;
proportions of the areas to be devoted to soft and tree fruits;
rootstocks for the tree fruits;
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.