When you buy trees from a nursery, days or weeks before you buy them they will have been lifted from the soil in which they grew, and then ‘heeled in’, which means they’ve been stored in sawdust, loose soil or some other medium to stop their r [...]

Young fruit trees start life with a very small root system, so it makes sense to plant them in a welcoming environment, with a friable soil structure, good drainage and readily available nutrient while their roots get established. Choosing the [...]

Green manures are crops grown to improve the soil condition and nutrition. They can help crowd out the weeds you don’t want, and some even get rid of soil diseases. Instead of being harvested, the crop is dug into the soil while still lush and [...]

In this article we give you a checklist of things to do to help keep your young trees thriving through the summer months,. Read the article in Summer - Week 3.

Trees do a lot of their growing in spring and early summer, so it’s important they get a good start. At first they use the energy they stored in their tissues last season, but as their roots develop and grow, they are soon relying on the nutri [...]

We would never normally recommend moving a mature fruit tree as the risk of damage and the introduction of disease is so great that there is a good chance they will die, not to mention the huge logistical exercise involved in moving a mature t [...]

Planting your fruit trees carefully will help to get them off to a good start in spring. Being shifted from the nursery is a shock to the tree, and always involves the loss of a lot of roots. Some tender loving care, plus the right soil additi [...]

We’re often proudly told by new fruit tree owners that their one or two-year old tree has fruit on it. While we appreciate how exciting it is to get a return from a new fruit tree, you could be sacrificing the future shape and structure of you [...]

Rabbits and hares can be a bad pest of young fruit trees by chewing the bark, setting back the tree’s growth. If they chew the bark all the way around the trunk (‘ringbarking’) they will easily kill a tree. They can also nip off small branches [...]

Here’s a quick checklist for newly planted trees to tick off before they start growing, to make sure you’re giving them the best possible chance of success. Read the article in Winter - Week 10.

Building appropriate protection for your trees can easily become one of those jobs that keeps falling to the bottom of the 'to do' list, but in nearly every case it's worth the time and energy. There's endless possibilities, so here are more t [...]