Our editor, Clare Foggett, reveals the five easiest fruit trees to grow for a delicious harvest.
The prospect of growing fruit trees can be daunting – pollination groups, complicated pruning involving spurs and tips, countless tricky pests – but choose your variety wisely and you can sidestep many of the scarier aspects of fruit cultivation. Stick to fruit that’s less troubled by problems, low-maintenance and importantly, self-fertile so you don’t need pollination partners to guarantee a crop. Then look forward to delicious summer harvests year after year – maximum reward for minimum effort.
1 Apricot ‘Tomcot’
Apricots are members of the Prunus family, all members of which are best left unpruned to minimise the risk of canker and silver leaf diseases, both of which can enter the tree through pruning wounds. If any misplaced or damaged branches need removing, prune them out during the height of summer. Apricots are self-fertile so don’t need partners, and modern-bred varieties are more than capable of producing a generous crop in the UK. Look for names that end in ‘cot’ such as ‘Tomcot’ or ‘Flavorcot’. Both produce large fruit, their orange skins blushed with pink, in a good year. Their only flaw is the early blossom’s susceptibility to frost, so you do need an element of luck with the weather.
2 Plum ‘Victoria’
This self-fertile plum produces bumper crops of juicy fruits. Its pink-red skin has a beautiful blue bloom, with yellow flesh inside that’s good eaten fresh and even better cooked. ‘Victoria’ has stood the test of time, first discovered in a Sussex garden in the 19th century and introduced to the nursery trade around 1840. It has an RHS Award of Garden Merit and is the variety most widely grown by the UK’s commercial plum growers. The only problem you may encounter is that it can sometimes be so laden down with fruit, its branches can snap under the weight. Prop the branches up to avoid damage.
3 Apple ‘Falstaff’
Apples are the trickiest when it comes to ensuring they have the right trees growing near them for pollination. But there are self-fertile cultivars available, such as ‘Falstaff’. Although crops may be bigger with a partner nearby (it’s in flowering group 3 so suitable varieties include ‘Discovery’, ‘Worcester Pearmain’ or ‘Scrumptious’), it will still bear fruit grown on its own. And its fruit are delicious: red-striped, refreshing and fruity. It makes a compact tree so is suitable for small gardens, is easy to grow and heavy-cropping.
4 Nashi pear ‘Kumoi’
These Asian pear trees deserve to be more widely grown, and have none of the problems conventional pears can encounter, such as pear midge spoiling buds or pear rust disfiguring leaves. The fruit are like a cross between an apple and a pear, their white flesh crisper and crunchier with a hint of strawberry-like flavour. The trees are vigorous and have attractive foliage, as well as good autumn colour that makes them ornamental in their own right.
5 Mulberry ‘Chelsea’
You might think a mulberry is an unusual choice for a ‘top 5’ list of fruit trees, but these historic trees are easy to grow, as long as you have the space. They tend to have a wide habit so need enough room to spread out. They also need to be somewhere warm, so are perhaps best for gardeners in the milder south of the country. Mulberries need little pruning, another bonus, and their fruit is sublime. Pick it as soon as it is ripe and eat it immediately during their short, but glorious season, but definitely don’t wear white to do it – their ability to stain clothes is unsurpassed.
Buy all of our top 5 fruit trees from Pomona Fruits, tel: 01255 440410; www.pomonafruits.co.uk
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