Planting Fruit Trees
A light sandy soil, for instance, is not ideal for blackcurrants nor is a very heavy clay to strawberries. To plant in badly drained soil that gets sodden each winter is to court disaster, and thus good drainage most always be borne in mind. One should never plant in soil that is riddled with perennial weeds, like creeping buttercup, dock, thistle or ground elder. It is necessary to wait a year before trying to establish an orchard or soft fruit crop in this case. Thus an opportunity is given for the use of dry sodium chlorate all over the leaves of the weeds, to kill them permanently, or to use instead one of the new strong hormone weedkillers.
Annual weeds like groundsel, chickweed and shepherd’s purse are not a problem., but once fruit trees and bushes have been planted in ground infested with perennial weeds there is no satisfactory easy way of getting rid of them. It is a mistake to plant a variety that is not particularly suited to the district. A Cox’s Orange Pippin, for instance, is undoubtedly the best flavoured apple there is next to Cornish Gilliflower, but a Cox needs a pollinator and doesn’t like the cold and dampness of the north, while the Cornish Gilliflower is a tip-bearer and much prefers the warmth of the south-west.
If, however, you put in your order early, say some time in th.e summer, and you insist on a November delivery, you will probably get what you ask for, especially if you promise to pay him promptly. It will pay you to go and collect the trees yourself in the back of a car or lorry. First of all, you will be sure to receive them without any of the fruit spurs being broken off; and, secondly, you will get them at the time when you need them.
The ‘compost fruit grower’ will never make the mistake of planting too deeply. He plans to allow the roots of his trees and bushes to explore the top 6 inches of soil perfectly-as well as the lower reaches. Shallow planting is especially important in the case of the heavy clays, and there are growers in parts of Sussex who have found it advisable to spread out the roots of apple and pear trees on the surface of the ground, and then to cover them with further surface soil from round about. This has given far better results than digging holes, even though they be only 9 inches deep-in the heavy clay.
Trees that are grafted and budded on to special stocks must never be planted deeper than the actual point where the graft scion or the bud actually joins the stock. When planting is done deeper than this, what is called scion rooting takes place, and this means that the variety itself throws out the roots and thus the effect of the stock will be completely masked. It is foolish to take all the trouble to bud or graft on to a known stock, and then to plant so deeply that the stock cannot play its part in influencing the variety. With the top fruits like apples, pears and plums, one can help to ensure that the roots can grow freely in the top inch or so of the soil, because the orchard will be grassed down after the trees are established. With soft fruits the whole of the land will be mulched with straw a foot deep and thus no cultivations at all are done in the spring, summer or autumn and the roots grow as they feel inclined. They are never hindered or cut off. With smaller plants like strawberries the same rules apply, but the mulching is done with sedge peat 1 inch deep.
Some people have told me that they couldn’t possibly heel in the trees when they arrived, because the land was too frozen. Such people didn’t know the ‘trick of covering a small plot of soil with straw a foot deep or so, so that however strong the frost the particular area of land never gets frozen. Thus the roots can be protected once they are buried and they can remain there quite happily until planting time comes. It is usual, incidentally, to do the heeling in at an angle of about 45 degrees.
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