Fruits in the Garden - Part 1

We're intending to significantly increase the quantity and variety of the edible perennials in the garden, mainly in the form of additional fruit bushes and trees, but all the new plants we've bought recently will be described in Part 2.

In this Part 1, we're summarising the edible perennials we already have growing in the garden.

Growing in the ground

Rhubarb (unknown variety) -  we've three crowns planted next to the raised bed area, and these produce a lot of stems throughout the year.   Very undemanding to grow, it needs next to no attention at all.

Chives - not a fruit of course, but then strictly speaking neither is rhubarb ...  There's a patch of chives in the raised bed area.  Being an allium, it's evergreen, can look a little straggly in winter, but it comes back strongly again every spring.   If left to flower it becomes a magnet for the bees.  With nothing to do except harvest the leaves as required, it's the very easiest edible perennial you can grow.

Apple (unknown variety) - this mature tree has been in the garden since long before we moved here, and is reliably productive.  Now back under tight control, after we pruned it far too hard one winter and were overwhelmed with new whips produced the following year, it still requires an annual summer pruning to keep its height and shape.

apple tree in July 2020

Pear Conference - this was one of two Conference pear trees we planted in around 2014.  The second tree was totally cut down last year and this remaining specimen was given a reprieve after a very heavy pruning to cut out diseased limbs, reduce its height and improve the shape.  It has produced a few fruit in the past, but has never cropped heavily.

pear tree after 'repairs' last summer

Plum Victoria - planted as a sapling way back in 2013, this has never produced even a single blossom !   I don't know why, by now the tree should be more than mature enough to bear fruit.  Where it's planted can get a little waterlogged in the winter, but this has never bothered the apples and pears in the same area of the garden.  

This plum tree has been on death row for many years now, and maybe 2021 is when it finally gets cut down.

Blackcurrants - rescued from Poundland in 2013, these have been very good plants for many years.  The weight of cropping depends on the previous year's pruning, which we now have down to a fine art - not too much old wood removed each time, and sufficient new wood allowed to grow each season.

Redcurrants - we have one bush that was rescued at the same time as the blackcurrants.  It makes decent enough fruit, although the yield is much lower than the blackcurrants.

Strawberries - we inherited the strawberry patch when we moved here, although all the plants have since been replaced, either by pegging their own runners or with white varieties we first interplanted years ago.  

some of last year's white strawberries

The strawberry bed is now almost 100% white varieties.  Very productive, with maintenance limited to annual trimming and occasionally pegging down runners to make new plants.

Raspberries - we've had several groups of raspberry canes we grew from seed in late 2013, but last year we dug-up most of them during a mini landscaping modification.  There's probably still one or two left, they're autumn fruiting and always yielded a decent amount of berries.  They were difficult to keep upright though, constantly flopping over even when lashed to fence pins.  Maintenance was easy enough - all the canes were simply cut down to ground level in the winter.

Grapes Chardonnay & Moscato d'Amburgo - the Chardonnay was planted outside and routed through the old greenhouse wall in 2013.    When we demolished this greenhouse last year, we were very careful to avoid damaging the mature vine, and built another structure to support it.

new vine trellis in Spring 2020

In May last year, we bought the second vine, Moscato d'Amburgo, a black dessert grape variety which we placed at the base of the RH trellis post on the photo above, although this image was taken before the vine was planted.

The yield from the Chardonnay vine was very high in recent years, while it was sheltered within the old greenhouse, but last year we didn't manage a single edible bunch of grapes.   However, we think this was due to a combination of shock to the plant from a sudden change of environment during the growing season, and a poor summer here in terms of both temperature and hours of sunshine.

To control the vine and encourage fruiting, grapevines need pruning every winter while dormant (old wood can 'bleed' if cut during the growing season), but we're now very familiar with this process and it doesn't take more than 10 minutes.

Pineapple guava - aka Feijoas, these plants were a new addition to the garden in 2020.  We bought three small saplings in the spring, and grew them on to a decent size in pots before setting them out in the ground in December 2020.

Acca sellowiana - our pineapple guava saplings

Pineapple guava is H4 hardy but we may struggle to ever get fruit from these plants at our latitude.  However, we should at least get the exotic flowers and hopefully the bushes will knit together to make a good evergreen hedge to fill the space between the western legs of our vine trellis.   

Hazelnuts - our original deciduous 'outer' hedge on the western boundary is a mix of native species, one of which is the hazel willow.   We've had a handful or two of nuts from the hedge over the years, but the squirrels usually get there long before we do ...   

Come to think of it, two of the other species making up this same hedge are sweet chestnuts and crab apples, but although we've occasionally seen the odd blossom we haven't had any nuts or fruits from these.

Growing in containers

Plum Victoria - on a semi-dwarfing rootstock and planted in April 2019, we had the first plums from it last year (5 fruits in total !) and we're hopeful for many more in 2021 and beyond.  Very little effort required, only light trimming in summer to keep its shape.

Apricot Aprigold - bought as a bare-root sapling in November 2016, this has never blossomed as yet but the tree's healthy, it's been pruned into a nice 'standard' with a round head, and we're hoping for blossoms this year.  Apricots flower very early in the year, too early for our location, and the blossoms will need protecting from frost using fleece material.

Currently in a 50 litre pot, this tree will be re-potted into a larger (100 litre) container before the spring.

Blueberries - we have two bushes in separate large containers, one a Spartan variety from around 2013.  The second Spartan died only a few years later, but we replaced it with a Goldtraube which is now catching up in terms of size.  Very productive bushes, especially the older Spartan.  Minimal pruning required but needs regular dosing with an ericaceous liquid feed.

Blueberry Spartan

Fig Brown Turkey - planted in a bespoke container in early 2017, this has grown very well but hasn't yet shown any signs of fruiting.   Low maintenance, although it will probably need a prune this year.

Cherry Sunburst - on a semi-dwarfing rootstock and bought in June 2020 as a replacement for our older cherry tree, which we cut down last summer.   

We pruned and shaped this young tree a little when we first planted it, although I resisted giving it the chop right down to knee level.  This might prove to be a mistake as the tree grows, since I'd like to keep it very compact and it would have been better to start out by making it a much smaller tree.   

However, it's overwintering well and I can see there are both vegetative and fruit buds ready to open, so if the weather's kind to us then we could get a small flush of cherries this year.   

Similar to the apricot, this tree is currently in a 50 litre pot but will be repotted into a much larger container before the spring arrives.

Quince Rea's Mammoth - bought bare-root along with the apricot in 2016, by last year it had developed into a wild and tangled mess.  Additionally, every year since it was planted it has suffered badly from leaf blight.  

It was destined for the chop last spring, but at the last minute I gave it a very severe pruning and potted it up into a larger container.   I even thought I'd killed it, but it sprouted several new branches later in the year and is still clinging on to life, to the extent that it didn't shed its leaves in autumn and is still carrying them now throughout the depths of winter.

the quince tree in the spring of 2019

The quince was always very early into leaf, and even looked quite attractive in the spring before the new foliage became blighted.

Mulberry - Morus nigra - this sapling was bought in the spring of 2020 and is still very small, currently planted in a 5 litre pot, so it'll be several years before there's any chance of fruit from it.

Banana Dwarf Cavendish - Musa acuminata - I'm including our three small banana plants in this list, bought last spring, but of all the fruiting plants in the garden these are by far the least likely to ever produce an edible fruit !   

one of the 3 banana plants, with a pup !

Even keeping them alive and growing throughout the winter is a challenge.  They're currently in our conservatory, which is unheated but frost-free, and if they survive then they'll need re-potting before they go back outside for the summer.

So that's a summary of the edible perennials we have in the garden right now.  Part 2 with the new additions will follow soon ...