Tag Archives: Fruit trees

Apple Trees update 2020

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You may remember we sprouted some apple seeds in 2014 …

And they grew and grew and grew 😀

and grew 😀

And look at them now! (6ft gardener included for scale)

This one is the tallest and would be much taller but we cut it back each winter to keep it manageable.

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This one is the most flourishing because it hasn’t suffered with aphids like the others have.

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This one is making a comeback after ant and aphid infestations, I’ll tell you why in a minute.

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And this little fella has struggled from the get-go but he’s hanging in there thanks to …

Yay!  The ladybirds have arrived!  And now there’s not an aphid to be seen! 😀

Our apple trees are over six years old – how time flies!

Maybe in another four we’ll get some apples 😀

Have a great day!

 

It’s time to look at the apple trees

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Remember, way back in February 2014, we planted some apple seeds?

and they grew (well some of them died, but some of them grew)

And we checked in on them in 2015 and again in 2016 and they just kept on growing!

So we planted them outside in the ground.  We thought the chickens might like them for shade when they’re bigger, but while they’re still young we put some wood around them to keep the girls from scratching the earth off their roots.  There’s four in here (I wonder if you’ll be able to spot them all), and two of them are taller than me!  The 8 to 10 years wikihow said we’d have to wait for fruit seemed like a long time, but it’s been 3 years already and time’s just flying 😀

NB this is not my garden 🙂 but luckily we were able to plant them here.  So, if you don’t have anywhere of your own to plant them, look for a suitable spot on public property where they won’t get hacked down by farm machinery and then everyone can enjoy them.  Check out the Scottish Forest Gardener to see how he successfully plants trees on council property 🙂

Plant trees!  You know it makes sense 😉

 

Home Grown Apple Trees – Look at them now!

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apple trees from seed

Remember a couple of years ago we started growing apple trees from seed?

FLASH BACK: this is how they looked in February 2014

Well, we’ve kept on with it, sprouting seed after seed, growing seedling after seedling, and we have quite a few in different sized pots around the garden.  Some of them didn’t make it, sadly, but that’s the way it goes, and we just keep on going.  (I say ‘we’ but really it’s Miranda who does all the work.  I help with watering 😉 )

apple trees from seed

If you look over here you will see what our oldest ones looked like a year ago – nice strong, woody stems, but still tiny.

But now the tallest one is about four feet tall!  I’ve photographed it next to a garden chair to give you some idea of scale:

apple trees grown from seed

How fantastic is that?!!!

It seems like no time since we sprouted those first seeds.

We have planted a few in the wild and intend to keep doing that, inconspicuously near public footpaths, in the hope of providing free food for the future, but most of them are still in pots for now.

apple trees from seed

We love our little trees 😀

If you want to do this yourself, go to the original post to see how 🙂

Apple Trees Revisited

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Remember we decided to grow our own apple trees from seed?

Travel back in time to February 2014 to see how our apple trees began 🙂

They dropped all their leaves in the winter (we actually thought one of them had died and were going to plant something else in the pot) but then spring came and they came back with gusto!  They’ve got beautiful new leaves and strong woody stems.  Look at them now:

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And here’s some new babies we’ve just got started (there are so many apples in our future 😀 ):

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And look at them in May 2016!

Forest Gardening

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I have a mini-forest in my back garden.  It represents a pioneer experiment in restoring a tiny segment of the primeval Long Forest, which once covered a wide area of the Shropshire Hills bioregion.  Like the natural forest, it comprises a wide diversity of plants, occupying seven levels or ‘storeys’, but, unlike the natural forest, almost all its plants have been carefully chosen to meet human needs.  It is, in fact, an attempt to create a model life-support system, which would enable a family or small community to achieve a considerable degree of self-sufficiency in basic necessities throughout the year, while enjoying health-giving exercise in a beautiful, unpolluted and stimulating environment. – Robert A de J Hart

Forest Gardening by Robert Hart

Those who are concerned with the full implications of the ecological crisis which we now face generally agree that urgent steps should be taken to plant many millions of trees.  …. It occurred to me that there was no reason why many of the desperately needed new trees should not be fruit-trees planted by the owners of town and suburban gardens, who would gain the bonus of growing nourishing food.  If one could persuade 100 000 Londoners to plant just ten fruit-trees each, that would be a million trees – quite a forest!

That’s a great idea Robert! We don’t have a garden of our own, or any prospect of acquiring one, but we still want to join in!  So we’ll just plant them in public places, places where we’ll be able to keep coming back to nurture our trees, and eventually to gather fruit from them, as will anyone else who wants to. 🙂

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