By Sam, worthing west sussex, uk

Re: Fruit Tree Help!
30 Apr 2008 18:07

As some of you may know I have recently added an orchard - hehehehe - to my garden...and i need some advice

Replies

By Sam, worthing west sussex, uk

Re: Fruit Tree Help!
30 Apr 2008 18:11

I have a plum - victoria, and an apple - james grieves.

they are both 3 years old, and i have been told there is a slim chance they may produce fruit this year.

my concern is, the plum had a small handful of tiny delicate white blossom, and my apple has a good few bunches of blossom.

well as some may know i live right up on the south downs and just of late we have had atrocious weather, very high winds hail and constant heavy big plops of rain.

and my plum has lost all its blossom, apple still has quite a lot.

will the fact that blossom has been blown off affect fruit production? or am i over worrying? i was under the impression, blossom is where the fruits grow from.

Am i being silly?

Sammy

By Biggles

Re: Fruit Tree Help!
01 May 2008 10:17

Hi Sammy, yes the fruits come from the blossom. You may be fortunate and discover the bees have already 'done their thing' and you may get some plums. I hope so. Ref the James G, we had one and it produced a prolific number of fruits, clumped together. We learnt the hard way that it was better to remove the smaller of the fruits clumped together. We were so excited we just let everything grow and then lost a couple of branches because of the weight of the apples and the wind. In fact we lost a couple of branches for a couple of years. The apples were always on the ends of the branches. Hopefully, your tree will be better than ours was :0) Biggs

By Impi

Re: Fruit Tree Help!
01 May 2008 14:47

You should find that the blossom were on long enough for them to set, give it a couple of weeks and then look to where the flowers were, you should start to see small bumps which will be you plums, eventually. The plum will flower and drop before apple trees which are slightly later. Good luck with them, we have an orchard of 16 various apple and pear trees and one very old but prolific plum tree, it is so exciting to see them all grow, for your small trees I agree with Biggles, you need to take the fruits down to two per 'sprig' take off the smallest ones, this will allow the two apples to grow well otherwise you might end up with smaller fruits.

By Sam, worthing west sussex, uk

Re: Fruit Tree Help!
01 May 2008 17:44

Thanks for your advice, been m ost helpful and put mind at ease that hopefully we will get some fruit this year.

we did know about thinning apples...thinning is something i really hate to do, i feel like i am a murderer, picking out stuff.....yet i don;t give thinning weeds a second thought, but my veggies and now fruit seems so cruel!!!

Sammy

By Impi

Re: Fruit Tree Help!
03 May 2008 11:14

Sam I know just how you feel, I am the same when I do it to the trees, I even apologise out load sometimes!! but it does help doesn't it.