Fruit in containers

[Andy Hamilton]

In my new container garden (move in a week tomorrow , er to the house not the garden) I was thinking about the possibility of growing fruit. I know that you can grow strawberries in parsley pots and I have even written about growing apple trees in pots.

Has anyone grown any fruit in a container garden?

[Wombat]

G'Day Andy,

I have a tahitian lime and a kaffir lime in pots (big ones) and they do OK!

Nev

[FluffyMuppet]

Hi Andy,

I have two blueberries (very trendy!) which are potted into ericaceous compost. They've just completed their second season with me and are doing well. You can also underplant them with cranberries, which like the same conditions. Or Wiggly Wigglers do some native fruit plants along the same lines (bilberries and something else I can't remember) which might be nice.

I also have 4 minarette fruit trees (the ones which are basically fruiting poles). I put those in about this time last year. I used all potting compost, and they were very stressed over the dry summer and didn't do too well. I've just repotted them into a mix of topsoil and potting compost and hopefully they will be happier next year.

The latest edition of Grow Your Own says autumn fruiting raspberries and rhubarb are also OK in pots, but I haven't tried either of those.

Emma

[Kfish]

Currently I have a few strawberry plants in ice-cream buckets hanging on an outside wall. They fruit sporadically.

I also have a young orange tree in a tub that's about 2 foot deep and 70 cm in diameter. It's got two oranges on it that seem to be doing okay, though they're only golf-ball sized.

My grandmother used to grow pawpaw trees in pots, and get fruit from them reliably. She went out one day to discover that the roots of one had grown through the pot and into the ground. A few years on, the tree is firmly fixed into the ground, with the pot still attached.

[Andy Hamilton]

Thanks people, good suggestions as usual. Will have to see what the budget is by spring. For now I am on the look out for old tyres, used barrels and the like. It would be good to have a container garden consisting entirely of reclamed stuff.

[ina]

Years ago I had a blackcurrant in a wash tub - I think you can grow almost everything in a container, provided it's reasonably big, you don't expect miracle harvests, and don't forget the watering! In some ways it's even better with containers, as you can adjust the soil much better according to the special needs of the plant, i.e. acid or alcaline soils right next to each other, and very specific feeding.

Ina

[Boots]

I have an oddity to add, which I didn't do, but would do after seeing the results.

In the house yard, I have 4 citrus (2 oranges, 2 lemons) that were planted in hollowed logs - HUGE ones! About 2.5' across. These were planted the same time as the rest of my citrus in the orchard, and are easily twice the size and provide five times the fruit.

The previous owner planned on keeping them potted to reduce their size
*laughing* and originally had them on the concrete on the back verandah. When they got too big/bushy, he rolled/spun them out into the yard and they grew down into the earth. When the lower branches need trimming they look like they have huge trunks. They are fantastic, and visitors often comment, "I never knew you could grow citrus like that!"

Well neither did I... but I would recommend it!

[Millymollymandy]

Can you post a photo of them? They sound really interesting!

[Shirley]

I like the sound of using hollowed out logs for growing - would love to see a pic.

There was a school up here somewhere that had a load of car tyres that were destined for the tip delivered to the school grounds and they are going to create a raised bed garden out of them. Brilliant!

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/ACC_Data ... &offset=20

The winner of Action Earth 2005 is a great idea too - funnily enough I was going to use old wellies to plant some stuff after the dog chewed the top from one of my son's lovely rubber wellies.....

http://www.actionearth.org.uk/awards.php

[Leanne]

I too have several blueberries, in ericacious compost, in large tubs. Also a rhubarb (3rd year this year) in a large tub, and all my strawberries in either large pots or strawberry planters(all bought at boot fairs!) I also have wild strawberries in hanging baskets, (I do trailing cherry toms like that too.)

[ina]

The winner of Action Earth 2005 is a great idea too - funnily enough I was going to use old wellies to plant some stuff after the dog chewed the top from one of my son's lovely rubber wellies.....

Shirlz, I had nasturtiums in my old wellies this year, and I've stuck a couple of broad beans in them to see if anything develops over winter... As I have at least one pair of "holey" wellies per year, I expect a row of them along the front of the house before long. We all wear safety wellies here, and they develop "automatic drainage" quite easily.

Ina

[Boots]

Thread reverts to normal size again now....

Sorry bout that, Muddy...

l
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V


*Eyes refocus*

[Millymollymandy]

So that's why you're called Boots?

The tree trunk pots look good, and is that a spider plant growing out of one on the right? They are house plants for us lot in Europe!

[Muddypause]

Whooaaaah! Huuuuge pics. The second one isn't appearing at all on my 'puter, just an empty frame of nothingness scrolling off the edge.

For some reason some URLs don't seem to work properly here. I seem to remember I had some trouble with a URL that pointed to a forwarded address, which may mean that a TinyURL won't work properly here.

Could I also suggest the folk who want to post biiiig pics do it via a clickable thumbnail. If you don't know how to do that, you could upload your image to a site like www.photobucket.com where they can give you the right tags for a thumbnail [Instructions: once you've uploaded an image to the site, tick the box below it, then select 'Generate HTML and IMG code' from the dropdown menu box at the bottom].

[Boots]

...and to think I went out in the dark to take that second shot...barefoot in peak snake season!

Yeah Milly, that was a Spider Plant or Airplane Plant as some folks call them. It is in a pot in a log, as I never quite knew how it would go, and never got back to it...and the log its on is a palm log. When palm logs are cut, the goats love the inside of them, so I bung them in the goat pens and they eat out the centres. Then they make nice stands and planters.