The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Fruit => Topic started by: Fleecewife on May 23, 2015, 12:06:46 pm
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I don't live in an ideal place for growing tree fruit, at 1000' on my windy hillside in the south of Scotland. I have a small orchard however, as I believe in trying everything. One or two apple varieties work well (such as Blenheim Orange). We have tried various plummy types, such as Golden Gage, Merryweather Damson and Victoria Plum.
The Victoria Plum cropped wonderfully for the first time last year, after previous total failures, and the Golden Gage is wonderful. In the past we have had superb results from the damsons, but a new tree which has now cropped for the last two years has hardly any useable fruit. We get loads of blossom, much of which sets in spite of cold winds, but then half the fruit is inedible due to exuding resin. This deforms the fruit and makes it hard and a total waste of everything. It's definitely not plum moth - no creepy crawly inside.
RHS mentions a physiological disorder but doesn't say what, or what to do about it. Geoff Hamilton says 'improve growing conditions' but doesn't say how.
I know plums don't like waterlogged soils. This tree is near a small pond, but it's lined with concrete so won't be affecting the tree. The soil itself is fairly deep (for here), fertile and derived from ancient volcanoes, so neither clay nor sand. It's well sheltered from the howling winds. I have seen that feeding with Potash and FYM will help.
What else should I try? If I need to improve drainage then however do I do that with a quite large tree in the way?
All and any advice welcome as I LOVE my damsons and just want to feast on them :hungry: :tree:
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No idea but I will be interested in the answer as I have high hopes for our damsons.
We are in a similar site, 1000ft up in the north of Scotland, on a north facing slope (and we are still waiting for the first blossom to come out properly this year!).
This year we planted a dozen fruit trees including a couple of damson as we were advised that they were were the hardiest of all fruit trees and should grow anywhere.
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Bump? :tree: :tree: :tree:
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Try and get hold of a copy of 'the intelligent gardener' by Steve Solomon and get some soil tests done. It may well be a mineral imbalance
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We are on heavy red clay and damsons grow very well indeed.