Something fruity

[manxminx]

Can anyone tell me what fruit it would be best to grow in my small garden for making jams ,pies and wine .

[Dave]

Hello,
Well It depends how small your garden is, I had an elder tree growing in the front garden of my last house and it gave enough fruit for jams, wine, elderberry ketchup and some pies. Alternatively a thornless blackberry could be trained across the wall maybe with some strawberries in front of them in the beds. Blackcurrants are good too, they make a good jam and wine and can be pruned down to quite a small size. Or all of the above.

[FluffyMuppet]

Hi,

Apples come in all shapes and sizes - you can buy 'minarette' trees which are basically a single stem growing straight upwards (and will be happy in a large pot), you can train them onto walls and you can grow them on dwarfing root stocks to make small trees. They are unlikely to crop in their first season though, and cropping after that depends on the rootstock and the size of the tree. Dessert apples need a sunny spot and good soil, but culinary varieties are less fussy.

Have a look at the Ken Muir website for more ideas (http://www.kenmuir.co.uk/). They also have quite a lot of useful information in PDF files.

[manxminx]

Thanks for the advice the web site is great i wouldn't have known where to begin
thanks again

[Andy Hamilton]

Thanks for the advice the web site is great i wouldn't have known where to begin
thanks again

glad you like the site 8) Thanks Dave and Muppet for anwsering manxminx question. I must say that I do not know much about fruit.

I have added another section in the froum for fruit so if you have any more questions then ask away and I am sure someone will be able to anwser you. Good luck.

[rhyddid]

...

[leedarkwood]

Don't forget you can hang strawberries in pots on a fence, or use one of those vertical growbags that people use for petunias etc.
Have a good look round at any fruit trees in your neighbour's gardens, for up to a block away. If you can get one fruit tree in, try and get one that will be cross fertilised by a tree nearby. I would go for a plum tree if I could only get one tree. Gooseberry bushes and redcurrents can sneak into a flower garden, or you could train a couple of apple trees over an arch at the gate!

Lee

[Wombat]

G'Day Guys,

I don't know if they are available over there, but we can get "fruit salad trees" where diffierent varieties and different fruits (within the one group eg stone, pome citrus etc.) are grafted onto the one tree. That can solve pollination problems, but they are a bit pricey!

Another way that I saw on a local TV show - Burkes Backyard - is to buy 2-3 fruit trees and plant them all in the one hole so that they grow in together and produce different varieties of fruit on that looks like one tree!

Nev