In the fruit garden: May
After their mulch of well-rotted leaves the strawberry plants are making a bit more effort. They are still not great for two-year old plants but they at least look healthy and are starting to bloom. I am sure the blackbirds are getting excited
Although I am not mad keen on them, physalis or Cape gooseberries are easy to grow so I have two dozen plants ready to plant out when the greenhouse gets a bit less crowded. They fit my rules about growing your own because they are expensive to buy and easy to grow – and I can always find someone who likes them
Now in their third year in the ground and their second cropping season, the red currants are flowering well and we should get a decent crop, with luck – birds permitting
The pear blossom has been prolific but is almost over now
Some of the apple blossom is now at its peak with more still to open. I am worried that the frosts and cold weather of the past few weeks will mean we get poor pollination but we will find out if that is so in the next month when the fruitlets form or the flowers just drop off
Hi Geoff. I haven’t fed my strawberry plants yet (they are in a raised bed). They have quite a few flowers. Should i feed them now and what with? I couldn’t much them as they are growing through a black membrane. Thanks!
Hello. Feeding now will certainly help with flowering and fruiting and because they are growing through black plastic the best way to feed is with a liquid fertiliser. Any is better than none but a high-potash fertiliser such as Phostrogen or a tomato feed or any that says ‘for flowers and fruit’ will do. You should feed every week until the fruits are picked.
hasn’t the blossom been wonderful ….. my pear tree is loaded wish it was conference but they are nice its a dessert pear.
Loaded with flowers? does it fruit well? most pears need another variety nearby for pollination – except Conference and Concorde of course
Hi Geoff! After a few days grounded home by a gastroenteritis the lawn is knee-high and you just remind me to check whether my currants still exist… I have an apple tree and a quince, still young plants, I always bother if it’s right or wrong to take some of the fruitlets away at this time of the year because I don’t want the branch to break up under the fruit weight later… What do you do with yours?
Hello. Sorry to hear about your illness. I was away for 4 days at a show and cannot believe how the grass has grown! I always take some fruits off young trees so they have a balance between making fruits and making some growth. I have two young peach trees and one I left with a decent crop in its second year and the other I only let a few grow on. The one that carried the crop is now half the size of the other – which clearly shows it is better to let a tree grow for a couple of years and not to let it fruit. But after 3 years it should be ok though it is still a good idea to thin the fruits out so you get a reasonable number of large fruit instead of a mass of tiny ones. I hope you feel better now 🙂
Yes thanks, still recovering. I need to mow the grass but I don’t feel like it… I may thin the quince fruits out as you suggested as the branches are still growing and the fruits could be very heavy by mid summer….
The prospect of a bumper crop of quinces is a wonderful thought. We are a bit too cool in summer here for them to do well and a tree weighed heavy with their golden fruit in autumn is one of the greatest pleasures of the year. But even a bowlful off a small tree is a treat 🙂
the blossom has all gone and there are hundreds of mini pears it always fruits very well next door have pear trees so expect that’s why
ah – well that is good news then 🙂