Which Fruit tree to plant?

KingNerolives

Which types of fruit trees do you have planted and how is it working out? Good yield of fruit? Minimal disease? Etc.

macraignil

Apples are usually good.

BarryD2

Apples which vary from year to year. Tastes vary so not much point in listing varieties. One cooker though is worthy of mention, Howgate Wonder I think it's called. Martyr for canker, you'd think it'd be dead by now but always reliable crop of decent sized cooking apples.

Pear - never crops as too exposed.

Damson - was very productive for a few years and won prizes in local show for plums.

Plum - Victoria, not productive - too windy or late frosts, dunno.

Hazel in the ditches

Fruit bushes we have good success in: gooseberry, tayberry, blackcurrant, blueberry, raspberry. Strawberries in theory but either swamped in weeds or eaten by slugs.

rolion

Ive got my trees from HERE.

I choose the type of fruit wanted to eat but very important aspect is... pollination.
Make sure that the trees are in same group or simillar regarding the polination.

Enjoy it...

Lumen

This year I planted plum, cherry, medlar, aronia, Cornelian cherry, blueberry in the ground and alpine strawberry, blackcurrants, blackberry, raspberry, figs in pots.

Bit early to tell how they're doing, but I spent some time today removing bindweed from the blueberries. God I hate that stuff.

Have a couple of big mature apple trees of unknown variety but the flavour isn't great. There's a semi dwarf apple that's tasty though, and so much easier to pick.

Nut wise, my walnuts are looking a bit pathetic but might do something eventually. I'm more optimistic about the hazels.

macraignil

Lumen wrote: »

This year I planted plum, cherry, medlar, aronia, Cornelian cherry, blueberry in the ground and alpine strawberry, blackcurrants, blackberry, raspberry, figs in pots.

Bit early to tell how they're doing, but I spent some time today removing bindweed from the blueberries. God I hate that stuff.

Have a couple of big mature apple trees of unknown variety but the flavour isn't great. There's a semi dwarf apple that's tasty though, and so much easier to pick.

Nut wise, my walnuts are looking a bit pathetic but might do something eventually. I'm more optimistic about the hazels.

Have a plum tree planted since last year but no sign of fruit yet. Cherry flavor depends on the variety but the birds will usually get to them before I do anyway. The same happens with the aronia berries but it's good to have in the garden just for the flowers and the strong red colour to the leaves in the autumn. Cornelian cherry flowered but I don't see any sign of fruit. Blueberry plant has berries on it that have yet to get ripe so again will have to keep checking it to get them before the birds do.

Have good crop of strawberries in the polytunnel where the dry conditions reduce the slug damage to some extent. Raspberries that have stretched into the polytunnel are starting to fruit well. Gooseberry, blackcurrants and redcurrants aren't ripe yet but could be a good crop and have some thornless blackberry that are flowering well and usually provide a good crop of extra large black berries. Also have some elderflower trees in bloom that should develop berries but haven't bothered picking these since I'm not in to making jam and not sure what else to do with them.

Also have some edible berry shrubs/trees in the amelanchier family that I grow more for decoration than fruit production, but the berries taste reasonably good. The pheasant berry is edible also and is growing well and I'm even after finding some new ones sprout about the place and should have a good crop of these. I find the taste a bit variable so mostly just leave these for the birds.

Growing nuts I think is a long term project but hope to have some hazel and pine nut some time in the future. My hazel were really set back by a hare grazing on them so not expecting any fruit soon. Had some flowers on a feijoa tree last year but they did not seem to develop into fruit so hoping for an improvement this year. My neighbor has even got crops of almonds since I planted a flowering almond tree nearby.

My main tree fruit in a few years could be Himalayan strawberry tree as I grew almost a hundred from seed around five years back. They can from what I have read take about 8 to 10 years to fruit and I'm not sure I'll even like the flavor. They make a nice decorative tree anyway so spent some time in the last couple of days pruning out the lower branches to encourage some of them to become proper trees rather than multi stem shrubs. Experimenting with growing the rest as a hedge. I think its good to have fruit in the garden anyway to promote wildlife even if I only get to eat some of it myself.

corks finest

macraignil wrote: »

Have a plum tree planted since last year but no sign of fruit yet. Cherry flavor depends on the variety but the birds will usually get to them before I do anyway. The same happens with the aronia berries but it's good to have in the garden just for the flowers and the strong red colour to the leaves in the autumn. Cornelian cherry flowered but I don't see any sign of fruit. Blueberry plant has berries on it that have yet to get ripe so again will have to keep checking it to get them before the birds do.

Have good crop of strawberries in the polytunnel where the dry conditions reduce the slug damage to some extent. Raspberries that have stretched into the polytunnel are starting to fruit well. Gooseberry, blackcurrants and redcurrants aren't ripe yet but could be a good crop and have some thornless blackberry that are flowering well and usually provide a good crop of extra large black berries. Also have some elderflower trees in bloom that should develop berries but haven't bothered picking these since I'm not in to making jam and not sure what else to do with them.

Also have some edible berry shrubs/trees in the amelanchier family that I grow more for decoration than fruit production, but the berries taste reasonably good. The pheasant berry is edible also and is growing well and I'm even after finding some new ones sprout about the place and should have a good crop of these. I find the taste a bit variable so mostly just leave these for the birds.

Growing nuts I think is a long term project but hope to have some hazel and pine nut some time in the future. My hazel were really set back by a hare grazing on them so not expecting any fruit soon. Had some flowers on a feijoa tree last year but they did not seem to develop into fruit so hoping for an improvement this year. My neighbor has even got crops of almonds since I planted a flowering almond tree nearby.

My main tree fruit in a few years could be Himalayan strawberry tree as I grew almost a hundred from seed around five years back. They can from what I have read take about 8 to 10 years to fruit and I'm not sure I'll even like the flavor. They make a nice decorative tree anyway so spent some time in the last couple of days pruning out the lower branches to encourage some of them to become proper trees rather than multi stem shrubs. Experimenting with growing the rest as a hedge. I think its good to have fruit in the garden anyway to promote wildlife even if I only get to eat some of it myself.

Good ideas

smacl

macraignil wrote: »

Also have some elderflower trees in bloom that should develop berries but haven't bothered picking these since I'm not in to making jam and not sure what else to do with them.

The berries are very bland but the flowers can be used to good effect. Two things we used to do were firstly elderflower pancakes, which basically involves dipping the flowers in pancake batter, shallow frying and dusting with sugar. Second is elderflower wine and/or cordial which has great flavour.

Fruit wise, I currently have fig, apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees all fruiting well. Also gooseberries, white, red and black currants, raspberries, logan berries and rhubarb. Less successfully I have goji and kiwi fruit shrubs which are both vigorous but have never fruited and an apricot tree which has yet to fruit but I'm hopeful for (assuming it doesn't need a partner to cross pollinate). I've tried various species of blueberries in various locations but never had much success.

BarryD2

smacl wrote: »

The berries are very bland but the flowers can be used to good effect. Two things we used to do were firstly elderflower pancakes, which basically involves dipping the flowers in pancake batter, shallow frying and dusting with sugar. Second is elderflower wine and/or cordial which has great flavour.

Elderberry wine is very good if you're into winemaking - the Irish grape. But usually there's bushes to be found in roadside ditches that'll give you more than enough.

+1 for the food for wildlife note above. We take as much as we need/ can and just leave the rest to the birds and beasts.

macraignil

smacl wrote: »

Less successfully I have goji and kiwi fruit shrubs which are both vigorous but have never fruited and an apricot tree which has yet to fruit but I'm hopeful for (assuming it doesn't need a partner to cross pollinate). I've tried various species of blueberries in various locations but never had much success.

Have goji berry plants as well with no sign of fruit developing after planting a few years back. I've found blueberry fairly good at getting fruit even since losing one of the two I had to some tractor related damage when the neighbor was getting their hedge trimmed. They like acidic conditions and I think my soil is slightly acid so they grow here well. Do you know if your soil is alkaline, as if so it could be the reason for not getting fruit? I also read that its good to have more than one variety at the same time to allow cross pollination that is said to be better for getting fruit. Was surprised myself when my single shrub still had plenty of berries.

magicbastarder

we have a james grieve apple tree - dessert apple, but still quite young so not fruiting heavily yet.
our belvedere house cooking apple tree came from irish seed savers - has a fantastic pink flesh and the juice looks like ribena. this seems fairly bulletproof for us so far.
victoria plum fruits heavily; too heavily - pretty much every tree i know from ourselves and friends has broken under its own weight at some point. our current one has started suckering from the rootstock too.
also have a morello cherry tree; as mentioned above, the birds get 95% of the fruits.