Late summer pruning
With the help of the gardeners, volunteers and enthusiastic people on courses we have recently finished the late summer pruning of the 120 heritage espaliers (pears and apples). These trained fruits form a good natural hedge around the perimeter of the whole Kitchen Garden.
Pruning in late summer controls the growths on the spurs along the main lateral branches and reveals the fruit to ripen in the late summer sun and warm air, before harvesting in the autumn. The aim is also to encourage the following season’s fruiting buds to form (spur pruning), as well as removing any pests like greenfly and diseases such as canker.
Espalier pruning tips
- Clean up the main trunk, removing any unwanted shoots and suckers at the base. Leave 1-2 horizontal laterals in place, which could be used to replace a branch infected by canker.
- Retain two upward growing shoots at the top of the trunk, leaving these to grow on until March. They take up the nutrients and help to reduce the vigour of the main spurs.
- Make the pruning cut three leaves above the ‘basal cluster’ of leaves on the spur.
We have had a good crop of the Pears including 'Catillac', culinary (France 1665) and 'Uvedale’s St Germain', culinary (Kent 1690).
The apples have also done well particularly 'Ashmead’s Kernel', dessert (Gloucester 1700) and 'Coeur de Boeuf', culinary (France 1200) – despite suffering from extensive canker.
The badgers have become a major pest of the pears, having learnt how to pull down the trained branches to get at the fruit!
We will be displaying the heritage fruits in the Bothy for the Harvest Festival in October, and pressing the fruits for the visitors to try.
Other areas of interest
The late season green manures have taken well, including Phacelia tanacetifolia and Vicia faba (field beans). I have left one border of Phacelia to flower because it attracts masses of beneficial insects, (bees and hoverflies).
I have just started lifting the 'Pink Fir Apple' potatoes, which have had their best year since 2006 (free from blight).
With the help of garden volunteers I have been planting out the hundreds of wallflowers, which Shelley grew in small pots. These are then lifted in October for the spring flower borders.
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