Today has been spent plotting, planning and ordering our fruit trees, all done from the comfort of a chair with a mug of coffee in hand. 29 trees have been carefully selected and ordered, the cost was a bit of an ouch moment but we always knew this would be a big investment. We ordered from 3 different suppliers and I will share the details with you once the trees arrive, hopefully they won't arrive too soon as the snow looks like its here to stay a while.
Apples
Laxtons Pioneer
Lord Burghley
Discovery
Ellisons Orange
Peasgoods Nonsuch
Broadholme Beauty
Pine Apple Russet
Striped Beefing
Sleeping Beauty
Bountiful
Court Pendu Plat
Limelight
Red Devil
Winter Gem
Scrumptious
Arthur Turner
Ashmeads Kernel
Howgate Wonder
Pears
Clapps Favourite
Louis Bonne of Jersey
Princess
Laxtons Foremost
Plums
Warwickshire Dropper
Victoria
Claude D'althan
Other:
Quince 'Serbian Gold'
Quince 'Vranja'
Medlar 'Nottingham'
total cost just under £300
The apples are a mixture of dessert and cooking apples some are suitable for both, there's a good mix of long storers which ripen at different times. This is a key consideration for when they reach maturity, hopefully harvest will be spread over a few weeks rather than one! A good mix of flowering times was selected to ensure adequate pollination, no point having all those trees and no fruit. all the rootstocks are MM106 this rootstock will produce an
apple tree about 3.6 metres (12 foot) wide and 3m (10 foot) tall at
maturity. The
roots are quite vigorous so the trees should easily
support themselves without the need for staking, I am told it is best to support them anyway but use a mesh support to allow the tree to build up some wind resistance. The Quinces are something I have always wanted to grow but never had the space for, the Medlar is being grown purely for novelty value....in France its known as 'cats bum's' a look at its fruit makes the name self explanatory :) It is apparently best eaten when almost rotten and quite mealy in texture.....yum!
Bees next!
ReplyDeleteThat will be hubbys department although we have a friend that may keep some hives here to start with
DeleteI have tried but when the hive was opened I had a bit of a panic attack .....I am not normally such a scaredy cat but all that squirming was a bit freaky
I look forward to reading about how you get on with your fruit trees; when you first get the fruits and what you do with them! I've also planted a medlar tree for novelty value - but I'm still waiting (impatiently) for my first real crop.
ReplyDeletehello
Deletehow old is the tree ?
We planted it about two years ago. It has the right growing conditions, so we'll just have to wait and see when we get the fruit.
DeleteI planted one about 7 years ago and we got a few fruits in it's third year and then every year since. It has loads on some years (made chutney and jelly the one year).
DeleteThe medlar looks a lot nicer than it sounds!
ReplyDeletePam the jam and HFW swear by them..........
DeleteSounds like a really good selection. The meddlars are nice as a one off (every year) but they're never going to make a staple, although the trees do grow quite beautifully! I love how many aples you've ordered and there is very few the same as the 30 at my place! Great fun trying them all!
ReplyDeletehi kev there are so many varieties aren't there, I also have 5 ytees I did at a grafting workshop 2 years ago too but can't get to there labels at the moment. I can go to another one soon as well so might add a few more very local varieties
DeleteI love the sound of your new orchard! How brilliantly exciting! I'm counting down the days until I can have a proper *permanent* garden. Less than 18 months now - yay.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the shopping for trees - if you can organise appropriate man power - watching them being planted with a cuppa in your hand would also be quite an achievement! x
Can't wait to hear more about your planned move
DeleteWe are planning having a tree planting party with soup and beer as a reward!
Lovely selection. Would love to try both medlars and quinces too
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for my first quince jelly :)
DeleteWill be interested to hear about how you get on and which suppliers you bought from. I need to buy a few more trees. We planted some apple, plum, cherry and greengage trees a few years ago - they're so slow growing!
ReplyDeleteI think the waiting will be the hardest thing at least 3 years I think before any fruit :(
DeleteGood for you! It's always good when you can plant something that will live a good long time! With all those trees you are going to have a lot of fruit eventually!! We've got a couple of apple, peach and cherry trees. They are small and only produced a handful from each last year. It makes me want to plant more so that we'll have more fruit....but patience!
ReplyDeleteIts great to finally have the space to grow long term things
DeleteSounds like your trees are happy
I, too, am trying to become more self sufficient and have expanded my fruit and veggie garden. This year I canned some of my apples and tried to store the rest. By the end of December most of them were over ripe and I fed them to the horses. How do you plan to store your harvest?
ReplyDeleteSharon
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