Fruit In The Garden

















Three years ago I decided that, in addition to the various plants, flowers and the pond, I wanted some fruit in the garden. Given the comparative lack of space I decided on two of the smaller trees, one dessert and one cooking apple tree, together with a gooseberry bush, blackcurrant bush and some raspberry canes.

Choosing the dessert apple variety was easy, it had to be a russet. Russets are pretty hard to come by in the supermarkets and shops these days but if you can find them they are definitely worth buying, the nutty taste makes such a difference to the cotton wool texture and taste of what's usually on offer. Eating one takes me back to my childhood when my Grandmother would only buy russets.

Their lack of availability is because most people do not regard the coloration and feel of the skin as attractive as that of shiny apples they will not buy them nor even think to taste them.

The Egremont russet is one of England's most popular varieties and is thought to have been raised by a Lord Egremont sometime during the late 19th century at Petworth, Sussex.

From a gardeners point of view russet trees are often regarded as only suitable for sadists but I haven't experienced any trouble so far. The only maintenance they need is a good feed in spring and the renewal of the moth band in the autumn which stops coddle moths walking up the trunk. My tree is about twelve feet tall, it's an M26 rootstock, and it won't grow any taller it will simply fill out, how much it fills out is down to my pruning. The maximum harvest which is around the 45lb mark occurs in the fifth and six years so there's still a bit of a wait.

The gooseberry bush has been a bit hit and miss as have the raspberry canes but the blackcurrants come back year after year despite, or perhaps because of, the amount of neglect I have shown them. I also have a dwarf cooking apple tree, variety Rev Wilks, which produces a decent sized crop every other year.