Following the renovations to our kitchen garden we have new lengths of east facing and north facing fence. Boundary walls or fences are ideal for planting trained fruit, providing a harvest whilst taking up little space. If walls are available they offer further advantages, warming up during the day and slowly releasing stored heat during… Continue reading Planting stone fruits for fan training
Tag: plums
Sowing this week
This week we got our main crop onions, garlic, and shallots planted. Usually, we would have an autumn sown crop running along the side beds of the polytunnel, where they produce well, especially the garlic. As we did little in the garden last year, we are missing out on this crop, but have planted two… Continue reading Sowing this week
New cordon plums
Sometimes things do not go as planned. At the start of the kitchen garden project we planted three plum trees along the boundary fence and began their fan training. One developed many fruiting spurs but, before it could bear a crop, died. On another, one half of the initial Y shape died out and there… Continue reading New cordon plums
Planting out the orchard
It was many weeks ago when the last of our orchard trees arrived. As the planting site was not ready and the weather was poor, we healed them in, in one of the vegetable beds. Before we ordered the trees we had found somebody to give us a hand preparing the planting sites, as this… Continue reading Planting out the orchard
Cordon training of plums
Apples and pears are ideal candidates for cordon training. Oblique cordons were commonly planted along the walls of the traditional walled kitchen garden. Stone fruits, including plums, are more likely to be grown as fans. There exists, amongst some contemporary authors, the notion that stone fruits are not suited for cordon training and will bear… Continue reading Cordon training of plums
Plum varieties for the orchard
This article examines our selection of plum varieties, continuing the short series of orchard related posts. We have various plums and gages growing around the border fence of the kitchen garden and being gradually developed as fans: Coe’s Golden Drop, Kirke’s Blue, Reine Claude Violette, Oullin’s Gage, Transparent Gage, and Bryanston Gage. These have been… Continue reading Plum varieties for the orchard
The selection of orchard fruits
Things are quiet in the kitchen garden – and on the blog – at the moment, not so much because there is nothing to do, but rather because we are in the middle of some major renovations to the house and short of time. One matter that we have been attending to, though, is the… Continue reading The selection of orchard fruits