Allotments 4 All

Quote from: artichoke on May 10, 2014, 11:26:56
Why do you want to grow Poncirus trifoliata? We have one that produces lots of fruit, but I have tried everything to make the fruit palatable and completely failed. Whatever I do, it has a nasty musty smell and a mouldy taste. I like "bitter", and keenly use Seville oranges for marmalade and sauces, but these are plain nasty and smelly, and very disappointing. (I find the bush rather ugly, too....)

What do you plan to do with the fruit? Perhaps there are more palatable strains about than ours.....

Marmalade is what I was thinking.... if they don't work out then there will be another row of raspberry hybrids and maybe more wineberries, or I might get some columnar apples...

I know some people who recently extended their (already large) garden and created an orchard area in the new space. Not quite what i would have done with the space but i guess fruit trees surrounded by grass and wildflowers is a way of extending a plot without adding too much extra work to maintain it.

At the end of the day top or bush fruit produces good yeilds without all the work of sowing and planting you have with annual vegetables.

Today I decided to get 3 new apple trees for 3 x 3` high raised beds in my sunny back garden. I will have to change some of the compost as it is too fluffy, so will get several bags of JI no 3 and will replace the top foot. Was my last chance today, they are stopping sales for the summer tonight, and I wanted to get them in asap, so have ordered 2 year old pot grown plants on M26 rootstocks. That will add up to 6 apples at the house, including 2 crab apples in pots plus another 3 Ian Sturrock apples on the allotment.I call it future proofing tbh as I can see me having to scale down from fiddly things like lettuce and carrots and I do have a long apple picking device

I think it's a trend that has been going on for a few years now. There's a "Community Orchard" near us that was basically the last few dozen trees from the olde Hospital's grounds. The shopping-centre that's now there, wanted to expand into the area, and a bunch of local people got together and put a stop to it by turning it into a Community Orchard (and finding out it was something of a Wildlife Haven to boot)  :)

They are 80-yr-old plum, pear, damson and apple trees chosen so as to provide a stready stream of fruit to the hospital staff and patients. They needed a lot of pruning and other TLC, and now produce really well. They've been helped in this by local bee-keeper, who's set up a couple of hives there. The shopping-centre now include Orchard-related activities in the "Corporate Social Responsibility" bit of their annual report :)

In the spring of 2009 The National Trust started up a budget for preserving vintage orchards. Meanwhile, back in 2007 we planted 8 fruit trees in our small suburban garden: the 4 at the front, after 7 years, raise the tone of the whole street and make us into a "leafy suburb" :)