[doganjo]

I have a couple of questions for all you fruit tree experts  My daughter has recently moved into a beautiful Victorian house with a heavily stocked and well established garden.  She has not had a lot of gardening experience (nor have I really) and she is concerned about an apple tree and some plum trees.  The garden is walled to about 7 feet all round.  To me the soil looks very dry. 

Two of the plum trees look old and gnarled, but with a reasonable crop on them.  Some of the fruits, although still small, have split, others have gone brown.  What is the reason for this? 

There is an apple tree whcih is not tall (about 6 feet) but heavily laden with young fruit, so it will possibly need propping up.  What is the best way to do this? 

It will need pruning after fruiting but how should she tackle this?

Lastly there is an espalier trained tree with abundant small green fruits, I think may be plums, is that possible?  It looks like it needs considerable pruning as the branches are crossing all over.  What is the best way of doing this?  The grafting point seems to be very much above the ground level and wonder if the soil has eroded over time.

I've told her to feed and water all the trees, dig in soem manure, and to add more soil to the base of the espalier.  Is this correct?

[JD]

I am no expert Annie but do have a few fruit trees which are doing well and look after a few gardens with fruit trees. Regarding the split plums I think this could be a lack of water. Both the plum and the heavily laden apple should have the fruits thinned out to allow remaining fruits to fully develop. There is something called 'June drop' which is when weaker fruits fall from the tree naturally but sometimes I give the trees a little help by shaking the trunk/branches (wear a hat). Gardeners World magazine has a good article on summer pruning in July issue.
Regarding pruning this should be done before winter, especially for plums. Just cut out the dead, diseased and crossing branches first then cut back this seasons growth to to three buds. The harder you prune the less fruit you will get next year so you could  spread it over a few years.
You are correct about the watering, feeding and mulching. Hope this helps.

JD   

[ballingall]

I was at my sister's a fortnight ago and noticed that her plum tree was laden- looks like being a really good crop. Our plums look like having a fair crop but not an exessive amount. Perhaps partly due to the fact that one plum tree lost a third of itself in high winds at the end of last year. The apples I haven't really looked at yet- I'm bit worried as to whether this means we won't have many! There are NO fruits on the greengage- I have checked this closely as I love these.


Beth

[manian]

well if all the soft fruits are doing well (our damsons are heavily laden as they were last year)..... then it looks like we are in for a hard winter just like Bamford6 (Gary) has said.......
right just off to cut wood toget ready
Mx

[plumseverywhere]

Just been to our orchard, plum wine running out so we need to start getting organised     we have at least 10 new, young tree's covered in really sweet pink plums, so very happy.  the heron tree's that normally start being harvested mid july are pretty much ready so we are about 2 weeks early.
Not so good if this heralds a heavy winter though - Booooo!!

[shearling]

Three trees all absolutely covered and weighed down with plums/damsons. Running out of ideas of what to do with them. Made chutney, made wine, made jam. the amount already made will last us over the next year and cannot give them away. Dogs have been eating the wind falls  great fun especially when they have fermented  . Apple trees have also gone mad - see apple tree post - All fruit and flowers are a good month early and going over quickly

[katie]

Our apples look set to be ready early - all 800+ trees of them-groan! We haven't quite sold out of last year's apple juice yet either. The Mirabelle plums are over, the Pershore Yellow egg plums are ready and the Vics are ripening. Damsons are looking good too.

[doganjo]

My baby trees are very mixed. (all from Morrisons/Aldis/Lidls and all less than 3 years old)

In the front paddock I have a pear tree with three on it, two apples trees - between them about 21 apples, and one of them has sprouted from below the root stock as the top broke off in the wind.  Then there is a plum tree with about 20 on it, and a crab apple and ordinary apple with absolutely zilch on them except a little mould in on the leaves.  Also there's ablackcurrant bush which ash produced about 5 kilos of lovely black berries.

At the back there is a plum with a  few fruits on it, and two apple trees that have also succumbed to mould.  Any ideas why some were affected and not others, and what to do about them?  At the back there is a gooseberry bush which ws laden with berries (now in a pan awaiting action from me), and a number of raspberry bushes which have been very poor.  Mould on tehm too I think, but they are in dumpy bags not straight into the earth.

[plumseverywhere]

Our vic's have been hit by sawfly    same happened early season last year and then we still had a good crop so fingers crossed.
the yellow egg plums and heron's are all done now (mostly in a vat of wine, yay!)
pears look good this year 

[Rumpleteazer]

Has been an exceptional year for our fruit trees - loads and load of apples, loads of pears and millions of damsons. We even managed to get a decent crop of cherries and got to them before the birds did!

[doganjo]

My poor little 3 year old apple tree and its rogue brother were robbed out last night!   I came out this morning to a half chewed unripe green apple half way up the paddock and another 7 or 8 untouched ones just flung about - then I found another with a bite out of it!  Kids obviously but must have been after 11pm as I was out then and the apples were all on there.  So they got about 10 and I hope they give them stomach ache as they still had a week or two to go to ripen.  What do I do with the others?

[Sandy]

We have loads of apples on our apple trees, last year some one did the same and took the lot before they were ready, I told our dogs off for barking but as they are fenced off from the area where the trees are, there is little I can do and I do not want to pick them before they are ready...,fingers crossed I will get apples this year!
 PS Plumb tree died and pear and nut tree looks bare

[doganjo]

I wouldn't mind kids taking some to eat, but to throw half ripe ones around my grass was pure waste.

[pgkevet]

2 yrs ago I had my whole 'ready to pick next morning' apple trees stripped..as well as all the lemons stolen. And at the moment that's a town garden they had to go over a couple of fences to get to...would have ended up in a corner shop somewhere
Now I keep the lemons picked regularly and the apples come off a little sour and get 'strudel'ed'
I was going to extend the CCTV but it'd be a waste of time. The last lot of vandalism to my wife's car caught on CCTV and the response was 'If you don't know who they are then we're not going to catch them' - Huh? If I'd known who they were then it wouldn't have been me calling Plod!

I wouldn't mind a couple of kids taking an apple or two - there;s usually plenty - but that was robbery plain and simple.

[Sandy]

Children often pick apples to throw at each other rather than eat, the game is getting them. I hope they do not get to my nuts