In this article we bring you a pictorial guide to the 4 main reasons for thinning, as well as tips (and lots of before and after photos) specific to different types of fruit tree. Read the article in Spring - Week 9.

Fruit thinning is the practice of pulling a proportion of fruit from a tree while the fruit is very small, and there are lots of benefits for your fruit trees in doing it. But the trick is knowing how much fruit to remove and how much to leave [...]

Haven’t thinned your trees yet? Can’t decide whether or not it’s a good idea? As with most things to do with fruit growing, deciding whether to do some late thinning is a matter of weighing up the cost–benefit ratio, so read on and we’ll help [...]

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 [...]

Cumquats have a unique and delicious flavour. Here's a wonderful chutney and a delicious cake that make the most of these little citrus fruits. Get the recipes in Spring - Week 2.

The more we know about the pests and diseases that annoy us, and understand their life cycle, the more we can be clever about finding easy ways to interrupt the life cycle while they are vulnerable. Most insects have different life stages, and [...]

The soil food web is the most important part of your garden, and in fact of our entire ecosystem—without it, our soils would be sterile and there would be no such thing as organic food. The organisms in the soil are responsible for building so [...]

Fruit trees produce fruit as a result of sexual reproduction, which means that the female parts of a flower have to be fertilised with the male pollen, usually from a different plant. For many fruit trees the pollen needs to come from a differ [...]

Many plants we think of as weeds are also herbs, and contrary to popular belief, are often doing more good than harm - it's understorey management! Read the article in Autumn - Week 2.

Most of us want to grow fruit for the satisfaction of being self sufficient, and providing our families with affordable organic food. Saving money and having fun are the other main reasons we hear that people are passionate about fruit growing [...]

As a Grow Great Fruit member, you have exclusive access to our growing Fruit Tree Database. This is a great tool, which we started for ourselves years ago because it was just what we needed to plan our farm, and it was very hard to get the inf [...]

Guilds are a collection of plants (and maybe animals) that provide benefits for each other. Guilds cleverly bring together all elements that we normally consider in ecosystem design including plant form, height, diversity, properties and inter [...]