Page 28 - Simply Veg 1 2024

Lemon tree
at the same time. Although there is a good choice of peaches and nectarines there are a number of varieties particularly suitable for growing under glass. Avalon Pride, Peregrine and Rochester are good peaches and Lord Napier is a good nectarine.
A well pollinated peach or nectarine will set a very large number of fruits and it is vital to thin these out if good size fruits are required - which, of course, they will be! The final spacing between fruits should
be around 225mm but I suggest that you achieve this in a couple of stages. Firstly, the fruits should be thinned out in late May/ early June when the fruits are about the size of a twenty pence piece. At this point all clusters should be thinned to single fruits about 4 inches apart. At the same time remove all fruits growing into the wall or where they are in positions unable to expand. The second thinning should take place around four to six weeks later when they are roughly the size of a fifty pence piece. At this stage peach fruits should be thinned to 225mm apart and nectarines around 150mm apart.
Growing these fruits under cover makes infection by spores of peach leaf curl very unlikely but if you do find the odd curling leaf remove them as soon as possible, bag up and burn. The only serious pest is likely to be red spider mite and as with grapes this pest is best kept under control by using a predator. And again, good ventilation and keeping floors damped down on hot days will help as these pests will not thrive in humidity.
Peach ‘Barington’ close up
Young figs
You might choose to grow strawberries and raspberries under cover, and this is perfectly possible but the only benefit is to bring the fruiting season forward so this is not a route I particularly recommend unless you feel that this is the only thing worth growing. If this is the case, I recommend you grow the strawberries in growbags - and as table tops (i.e. raised platforms to make picking easy and
Orange tree
wrap the pots and trees in fleece as well. Another way of growing figs is to grow
them in a heated greenhouse in which the temperature never drops below 10 degrees Centigrade (which can be quite an expensive exercise however!) as this will enable you to produce a crop in one season rather than two. It is probably not worth doing this just for figs but possibly
to keep slugs and snails
away) if possible - and
raspberries in large pots
filled with John Innes 3
and kept well-watered
during the growing
season. Red spider mite
is likely to be the main pest and as noted earlier this can be kept under control.
Figs are very easy to grow and perhaps need the least attention of any fruiting crop other than to keep them well watered if growing in a pot, giving them protection
in cold weather and eating the resulting fruits! However, if you want to ensure that you have a regular and successful crop it is important to understand the fruiting pattern of figs in this country. The first and usually most successful crop begins its life as baby fruits produced in late summer at or around the tips of the young shoots. These baby fruits (called figlets) are very small - often smaller than peas - but provided that they are not affected by cold weather they will develop and ripen the following summer.
If the figlets are not protected against cold weather, they will simply fall off. If you can protect the pots from cold weather by moving them under cover during the colder months, you stand a very good chance
that the figlets will hang on and expand into fully ripe and luscious fruits during
the following summer. Generally speaking,
I suggest that you move the pots under cover at the end of September and move them out again as soon as there is no further chance of a frost. You will need to ensure that the temperature drops no lower than about 2 degrees Centigrade. In really penetratingly cold winters, you can loosely
in combination with something exotic like citrus fruits.
Finally, it is worth contemplating growing citrus fruits under glass although it is not necessarily the easiest
of tasks! It is possible to grow oranges, limes, lemons kumquats and tangerines
in the greenhouse providing you can
keep the temperatures above 10 degrees Centigrade during the winter and you buy your plants from reputable citrus nurseries. Grow plants in relatively good pots with plenty of crocks at the bottom (to give really good drainage) using John Innes 3 and another 10% of grit added. Feeding is only necessary during the growing season of March to September and use a high nitrogen fertiliser. Collected rainwater is best used for watering the plants. When daytime temperatures start rising keep the floor of the greenhouse damp to increase humidity which will deter red spider mite.
As soon as the weather warms up - usually June - and night temperatures do not fall below 10 degrees Centigrade - take the pots outside the greenhouse and keep them there in a sunny warm position until temperatures start falling again. This is absolutely perfect for growing and fruiting these plants. Be vigilant for red spider mite and mealy bugs when the plants are under glass using predators for the former and handpicking for the latter.
If you are successful in growing citrus, and many gardeners are, there is nothing better than growing, picking and eating your own citrus fruits!
Figs are very easy to grow
28 Simply Vegetables