Fruit - Page 2

Home-grown fruit
Nothing surpasses fresh fruit, hand picked from bush or tree! Most types of fruit are easy to grow and give large crops of delicious fruit. There’s always room in a garden for a fruit bush or tree of some kind. Fruit is tasty and good for you too – full of vitamins and minerals. Grown at home, you can be sure it hasn’t been sprayed with pesticides so, even better!
Soft fruit
Soft fruits grow on perennial shrubs that don’t grow too large. Think, berries, brambles, raspberries. Of course strawberries are soft fruit too, although they don’t grow on shrubs. If space is limited, choose soft fruit that will grow up a wall or pergola like blackberries, grape or kiwi. Soft fruits don’t require much space but will amaze you with their big crops.
Big (hard) fruit
This is all about fruit trees like apple trees and pear trees. If you have sufficient space, they look fabulous in the garden. Fruit trees are always full of blossom in the spring, white and pale pink – so lovely. Come autumn, the fruit is ripe and the foliage often takes on a pretty autumn shade. There are some low growing varieties in this group too like pillar forming trees, semi tall and low standards. Fruit trees that don’t grow too tall are great for in a planter on a large patio/decking. Then you can enjoy your own home-grown apples, pears and plums there too!
Patio fruits
Yes, of course you can grow your own fruit on the patio or decking! There are many varieties of fruit that will thrive in a large planter. There are special, low growing varieties of fruit trees and shrubs that really don’t take up too much room at all. Look out for a pillar pear tree, blueberry bush, creeping strawberry, mini kiwi, yellow raspberry, goji berry and dwarf apple. Give these a nice big pot with holes in the base and always use fresh potting compost. Stand the pot in the sun and water regularly. Success assured!
Pollinating fruit trees
Fruit forms after pollination of the blossom by insects. The pollen is brought from one flower to the other by the insects who come for the nectar – and so pollination takes place. We call this actually cross-pollination. Some types of fruit do require a special brush to pollinate them with pollen from a different type of plant in the same family, in order to form fruit. Apples, cherries, plums, pears and peaches all need this. There are of course self-pollinators where the pollen just moves around within the same flower so no other tree is needed for these.
Fruit – good for you
Eating fruit is a healthy thing to do! Eat many different types of fruit in order to get all the important vitamins and minerals from them that you need. Fruit is low in calories but high in vitamins and minerals. Fruit contains lots of water and lots of fibre too. Very filling. Eating whole fruit will actually fill you faster than drinking juiced fruit.
For more tips on planting and caring for fruit bushes and trees, see our gardening advice pages online.