Which fan trained plum?

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Which fan trained plum?
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Mithril

Joined: 22 Jul 2011
Posts: 1755
Location: wessex

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 13 9:45 pm Post subject:

yummersetter wrote:

Thanks for mentioning the Keepers sale - I bought Avalon and Bohemian Zwetsche plums yesterday, and also Scrumptious apple and Golden Sphere mirabelle/cherry plum for a friend.

Excellent - so pleased I stumbled across it.

Another one to note is Wilkinsons of all places. They have (in store not on-line) a variety of fruit trees at the moment at £7 each or two for £11. My father is letting me grow some stuff at his place so I bought 4 - a Czar plum, a Braeburn apple, a Stella cherry and a Concorde pear. They have other varieties too.

Marches

Joined: 13 Dec 2011
Posts: 171
Location: Nr Peak District, England

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 12:45 pm Post subject:

Mithril wrote:

yummersetter wrote:

Thanks for mentioning the Keepers sale - I bought Avalon and Bohemian Zwetsche plums yesterday, and also Scrumptious apple and Golden Sphere mirabelle/cherry plum for a friend.

Aldi also have fruit trees for £4. The usual - apples, pears, plums, cherries and raspberries, but also apricots and peaches too. I got a peach tree and I'm going to fan train it against a wall.

Mithril

Joined: 22 Jul 2011
Posts: 1755
Location: wessex

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 1:11 pm Post subject:
Gosh, £4 is very good. Might have to venture into an Aldi.

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 1:52 pm Post subject:
Sorry, not keen on cheap supermarket trees, I've wasted time and space on them. And I like to support committed growers who grow special varieties - the £15 difference when looked at over the 50 year life of a good tree is ridiculously trivial.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45421
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 2:01 pm Post subject:
Plus they will almost certainly be imported trees, it's all them imports that have given us chalara, loads of new strains of phytopthera etc.

Mithril

Joined: 22 Jul 2011
Posts: 1755
Location: wessex

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 2:05 pm Post subject:
True. My bargain blackmoor apple tree arrived last week (a one off FB deal) and it's lovely by comparison - really strong and nicely shaped. I do find it hard to walk past a 'bargain' though

Marches

Joined: 13 Dec 2011
Posts: 171
Location: Nr Peak District, England

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 2:14 pm Post subject:

yummersetter wrote:

Sorry, not keen on cheap supermarket trees, I've wasted time and space on them. And I like to support committed growers who grow special varieties - the £15 difference when looked at over the 50 year life of a good tree is ridiculously trivial.

You can think what you want, but we're not all rolling around in money. The trees at Aldi looked very healthy and I got what appeared to be the best one. Take into account that with mail order plants you can't actually see what you're getting.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45421
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 2:24 pm Post subject:

Marches wrote:

Take into account that with mail order plants you can't actually see what you're getting.

True, but I've been buying mail order for 12 odd years and have had hardly any bad ones.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 2:29 pm Post subject:

tahir wrote:

Marches wrote:

Take into account that with mail order plants you can't actually see what you're getting.

True, but I've been buying mail order for 12 odd years and have had hardly any bad ones.

What about that woman you got from Thailand?

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45421
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 2:32 pm Post subject:

Nick wrote:

What about that woman you got from Thailand?

She was fine till I ran out of ping pong balls

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 5:50 pm Post subject:

Marches wrote:

yummersetter wrote:

We're not all rich in time, either - I don't want to look at a tree when I'm 70 years old and wish I'd bought something better. I'm running a bit too low on future to scrap and replant. No objection to what others do, of course ( and my knowledge of rubbish, mislabelled trees comes from also not being able to resist a bargain. And I must confess I've looked up the distance and opening hours of every Aldi in Somerset

)

Marches

Joined: 13 Dec 2011
Posts: 171
Location: Nr Peak District, England

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 10:11 pm Post subject:

yummersetter wrote:

Marches wrote:

yummersetter wrote:

)

Of my supermarket trees (apple, cherry, plum, pear and peach), only the apple has had any problems. It picked up some sort of disease a few months after I bought it, I should have done more research into varieties really since its considered disease prone. The "fruit expert" considered it a good variety, didn't mention anything about disease - just biennial bearing if fruits aren't thinned. That book is about 10 years out of date and needs updating.

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 13 11:45 pm Post subject:

Rather than 'The Fruit Expert', have a look at the Orange Pippin website.
The majority of the apples sold in non-specialist shops are difficult varieties. Bramleys are enormous growing sterile triploids, and need a diploid variety to pollinate them. Cox will pollinate Bramley but is self-sterile so will need another diploid to pollinate itself. And its extremely disease and fungus prone. A lot of our apple tree varieties are bred from Cox and won't work as pollinators for it.
Braeburn will pollinate Cox, but needs a warmer climate and a longer season than most of us have, to ripen its apples. It is also vulnerable to scab, mildew and woolly aphid. Bramley has a lot of disease problems too, so to produce fruit with the damage-free appearance of commercially produced apples all three of them would need spraying.

The rootstock the tree is grafted on is important too, it should be selected for your climate, the final size and disease resistance.

And all of those varieties are among the handful of apple types that can easily be bought in supermarkets.

Marches

Joined: 13 Dec 2011
Posts: 171
Location: Nr Peak District, England

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 13 12:11 am Post subject:

yummersetter wrote:

I learnt a lot more about them after I'd planted it, it's an Elstar - it tastes something like Cox's and has it in its ancestry (a Cox's granparent).
I think I should have gone for Fiesta instead, that's supposed to be a good Cox's replacement. I'll see how it does this year, I may have to spray it. If it does badly again then I may just remove it and not grow apples.

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 13 10:57 am Post subject:

If you have room for both, the Fiesta should pollinate the Elstar, which appears to be self-sterile. I wouldn't judge any fruit by its performance in 2012, which was a good year for growing but a bad one for fruiting. A lot of the imported trees need a better summer anyway than we usually have to be at their best.

I haven't grown either of them but Fiesta's on my shortlist should a vacancy happen - I tasted it grown commercially in Somerset as Red Pippin and it had a good flavour.

Orange Pippin website's catalogue section has a good advanced search that includes a cold climate option - OP grows his apples in Yorkshire so has experience of what will thrive up north.

As Tahir says, I do worry about disease coming over with European supermarket mass purchases of fruit trees and stock being distributed in every allotment and back garden throughout the country - my nightmare is an unforeseen Apple Tree Plague like the elm and ash problems.

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