Fruit tree growing

About this website

This website presents a lot of information about growing fruit trees. But at this moment in time, we would like to highlight the section focusing on how to keep old trees healthy and productive. Today, more than ever before, it is well worth looking after existing older fruit trees in the garden or allotment. Fruit, essential for good health, is likely to become more expensive in the coming years, due to Brexit and Covid-19. It takes 4-5 years to bring a new tree into reasonable production, and so it makes sense to look after older trees as they are already capable of producing good crops, with the right care. Older fruit trees are larger and so take up more CO2, contributing to a healthier environment. There are ways of looking after trees over 30 years old to keep them in production. Read our article and discover the 6 main points to maintain fruit trees at a manageable size.

Consulting

Dan Neuteboom, the author of all the material on this website, can provide tailored advice on care, renovation and pruning of fruit trees, remotely, or with an on-site visit for locations in East Anglia. Over the course of his career, Dan has developed in-depth knowledge of fruit trees both in garden orchards and in large-scale commercial orchards. Some reader opinions are visible on our customer comments page.

Just send a message by email (enquiries@realenglishfruit.co.uk) or using our web contact form, and he will provide an estimate for the solution. Please send a few photos of the site and the fruit trees concerned.

Growing quality fruit trees

This website also presents information on the entire spectrum of fruit trees for the garden:

• advice on which trees to plant
• advice on how to plan a new garden orchard
• planting fruit trees
• how to deal with fruit tree diseases
• pruning fruit trees
• thinning
• training fruit trees as espalier, fan, cordon or stepover
• and much more.

Use the menu at right or top, or the site map below (scroll down) to find the topics you need.

Why is the website called www.realenglishfruit.co.uk? Because there is a difference between the fruit that you find in your supermarket, and the fruit that you could grow in your garden. Wherever you live, there will be certain varieties best suited to local conditions, and these will deliver the best taste, texture and succulent juiciness. We can recommend the right varieties of apple, pear, plum, greengage and cherry. So you can grow your own real English fruit. That’s why we are realenglishfruit.co.uk. Not supermarket.fruit.uk!

Fruit tree care July 2021

This year’s weather patterns have given rise to certain specific features relevant to fruit trees in the month of July this year. The principal characteristic is the unusually strong new vegetative growth within the canopy of most fruit trees. The combination of warm weather and plenty of moisture in the soil has a lot to do with it.

It is important to maintain a good entry of sunlight into the centre of the trees. This is particularly important for plums, greengages and cherries. For apples and pears, it is best to delay summer pruning until the end of this month. Many trees have reduced crops due to the spring frosts which occurred earlier in the year. Therefore, when summer pruning, if possible, concentrate on the removal of entire branches which are surplus to requirements. Not just thin shoots of the current new growth. Also reduce the height of the trees, in order not to lose control of the tree canopy as a whole.

The various types of aphids have in many cases have been curling up the ends of the new shoots. If there are enough ladybirds, hoverflies and lacewings in the trees, these will seriously reduce the aphid population and no further measures will have to be taken. If however, there are too many aphids, as it often is the case with young trees, than a visit to the garden centre is advisable. Then ask the persons in charge which chemical they stock for aphid control, without killing the predators at the same time.

Because of the strong growth, adjust the tree ties where necessary, to stop the ties growing into the expanding network of trunk and branches.

In addition, now is the time to protect the cherries from excessive bird damage, by fasting tree netting over the trees, or separate branches if the trees are too big.
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Click here to read all our fruit growing tips for July.

How to grow almonds and walnuts

We are receiving a lot of requests on how to grow almonds and walnuts, and how to prune almonds and walnuts. The main problems are frosts, and squirrels, which can seriously reduce crops. Just click on the photo below to read more.

Video channel

The videos published on this website illustrate the critical stages of fruit development, from the period from blossom to fruit formation, in a chronological sequence throughout the year. Click here to see the videos currently available.

Watch a video tutorial about how to prune a Josephine de Malines pear tree.