a more fun question about top fruit

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a more fun question about top fruit
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tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45674
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 15 10:11 pm Post subject:
Peaches are fine apart from peach leaf curl (even on resistant varieties) much better under cover. Quince is very scabby with us

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46235
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 15 10:16 pm Post subject:
that is an ace list ,thanks mate

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46235
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 15 10:39 pm Post subject:

quince are easily avoided

i recon we have space for a dozen or so pears though .although they tend to get quite big shading the road and scrappy "lawn" of the offices next door at the north east corner should not be a problem as they wont affect the view from or to the pub

did i mention there is a quite nice pub adjoining the orchard?

rather convenient for a post pruning lunch or "checking the trees"

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15984

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 15 6:01 am Post subject:

To me quince have a superb flavour, but need cooking or turning into jelly or wine. The plus side is that if someone pinches one and tries eating it, it will put them off rather. Medler is unusual and can be made into some interesting desserts. I think you can eat them raw if they are bletted too. Don't have any experience of mulberry, but it would be interesting and different.

Why wouldn't you go for Early Rivers Plum Tahir? I buy them and quite like them as an early plum.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45674
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 15 6:08 am Post subject:
Only because Herman and early favourite are both significantly better Dpack pears will only be the same sort of size as apples nowadays. Where's yummersetter? She's more organised than me, should have more recommendations

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15984

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 15 6:13 am Post subject:
Thanks Tahir. We don't really have any plums so I have to buy mine and Early Rivers and Opal are the earliest ones I can get.

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 15 6:19 am Post subject:

The Northern Fruit Group have a big list of fruit grown in and around Yorkshire. Linky to their list.

The Chair, Hilary Dodson, happens to live in Otley. A veritable auhtority on all things fruity. She is advising us about suitable trees in our Community Garden.

They have demonstration gardens on 3 sites, Harewood being the nearest to you. I beleive they have quite a few 'Heritage' varieties from which you coul obtain scions for grafting.

Piggyphile

Joined: 02 Apr 2009
Posts: 891
Location: Galicia

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 15 6:36 am Post subject:
I am impressed with my Nashi pears, trees not too big so far, ripened on the tree last year and amazing tasting. Out here you can't get known cultivars but they are precocious and look lovely and are bomb proof (so far).

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45674
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 15 7:01 am Post subject:
Which varieties have you got? We have one which isn't brilliant to eat but makes good juice

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46235
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 15 10:30 am Post subject:
thanks folks the info on pear size is useful,all the ones i have seen are old and huge( 20m seems a bit big )but if they are now reduced by dwarfing rootstocks to 3 to 5 it give much more scope in the layout and makes harvest easier i will try to have a chat with the otley fruit folk as the climate cant be very different to here.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46235
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 15 3:28 pm Post subject:

this is worse than seed catalogs and an allotment

it looks like we have got a bit closer to making it happen and having looked at prices from maidens to standards im thinking that some of each might be sensible in order to start getting an income sooner in order to cover the running costs

yr one will be minimal income
probably post winter pruning ,deal with moths etc on the existing trees there wont be a decent crop until yr 2/3

how long before a 2 m standard starts to give a reasonable return on the extra price compared to maidens?

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 15 9:08 pm Post subject:

Negatives first . . I'm wary of giving you recommendations because my two orchards are so much further south and some of my non-apple trees are borderline for late frost tolerance . . in the open ground away from the house walls I've had no apricots ever, no edible peaches, one japanese plum fruit. Several plums, peaches grapevines and crossbreed plum trees didn't come back to life this Spring even though it wasn't that cold. Mind you, there could have been another reason - these have been orchards for hundreds of years though the newly planted one was stripped of all the remaining old apple trees just before we bought it six years back.. On Google Earth it still shows the old trees and those are the areas where non-apple trees don't thrive, and I think the mouse and shrew colonies that lived under and among the old tree roots are eating the underground parts up to the collar of the new trees. I'm about to exhume the dead trees to be sure

Last edited by yummersetter on Wed Aug 12, 15 9:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 15 9:33 pm Post subject:

With more enthusiasm - good stuff.

Delicious and special apples amongst the 175 trees growing here:
Red Melba, Rev Wilkes cooker, Fortune, James Grieve (an essential pollinator), Red Windsor, Oaken Pin, Pitmaston Pineapple, Peasgood Nonsuch cooker, Orleans Reinette (russet), Queen Cox, Kidd's Orange Red, Blenheim Orange, our local Somerset Golden Russet. These are in order of ripening.

Plums - Early Transparent, Kirkes Blue, Yellow Mirabelle, Greengage.

Cherries - rarely eaten any as the birds here are fanatic cherry stealers - Vega and Merton Glory worked their unripe loooking fruit trick for one year but the pigeons now know their worth.

Pears - Concorde, Shinseiki, Jargonelle.

I recommend Roy Genders ' Planting Fruit Trees', well out-of-print but sold for pennies online, I think the last edition was in the 1980s.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46235
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 15 11:07 pm Post subject:

thanks

the more info i can absorb the better.

i recon there will be a few russets even if we only add a few new apples and the orleans renette has had a few recommendations:lol: a couple of good cooker types might be a good idea as well so i will check out the options

i still cant identify the existing apple type the only one that seems to match all of 50 odd criteria in an online id key is Esopus Spitzenburg but although it is possible from the age of the trees (over a century at a guess)it seems a bit odd that a hospital orchard in york was planted with a usa variety from the 18th c

i hadnt realised there were about 7000 named varieties until very recently

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 15 5:01 am Post subject:

dpack wrote:

If you can take apples (plus a few leaves) to an Apple Day 27-28th September at RHS Harlow Carr, Harrogate there will be people there who can identify them (some at 100 paces!). I did just the same when we first moved here (we inherited a few unknown trees with the house). You can meet the Northern Fruit Group there too.

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