Page 20 - ALG Issue 4 2024

FRUIT
Key tasks for your winter fruit garden
After a productive summer and autumn, now is a great time to give your fruit trees and bushes a little bit of TLC with help from the experts at Grow Your Own magazine.
Many of us are now saying goodbye to the growing season and starting to get ready for the colder months.We all hope for bountiful harvests from our trusty fruit trees and bushes, but what can we do to help them along as we say hello to the winter?
Get Pruning
Autumn and winter pruning of standard apple and pear trees, as well as blackcurrants, gooseberries, redcurrants and white currants is a vital task in a healthy and productive fruit garden.To start, all stems that are crossing, causing overcrowding or are infected with cankers must be removed. Dead and damaged twigs and branches need pruning out too as they will often be attacked by (or lead to the spread of) nasty diseases, including coral spot (where lots
of pinhead-sized and salmon-pink pustules appear on the wood). All ‘formative’ pruning work can then take place – shaping young trees so that they grow to form a strong, evenly-space framework of branches.
It’s worth remembering that pruning snags are vulnerable to diseases, so keep secateurs and saws as clean and sharp as possible. If you come across any brown, shrivelled and mummified fruits hanging from the trees, try and remove these as well, as they are likely to be infected by a common fungus called brown rot. Plums and cherries should not
be pruned in the autumn and winter, as the wounds are prone to infection by spores of the silver leaf fungus.
Look Out for Pests and Diseases
Here are four key pests and diseases to be aware of as we come into winter: Rabbits: Rabbits have an appetite for stripping off bark around the base of
trees, especially in winter, so make sure protective guards are in place.There are also non-harmful forms of repellents that can be used to deter these creatures from your edibles.
Peach leaf curl: Nip peach leaf curl in the bud by spraying with a copper fungicide
as leaves of peach and nectarine trees fall, and again come spring to help kill it off. For smaller trees, cloak in a clear polythene to keep buds dry between now and May to help prevent this fungal problem.
female moths are
emerging from
the pupae in the
soil and climbing up
fruit trees – including
apple, pear, cherry
and plum – to lay
eggs on branches.The
caterpillars can feed on
fruit buds, impacting the
bounty you’ll get next year. Act
now to reduce further damage to your trees later by using grease bands or tree barrier glues to intercept females before they reach branches.This needs to be in place until April and kept sticky until that time to be most effective.
Brown rot: Fruit trees can suffer from this fungal disease, where the individual apples, pears or plums turn brown and rotten, and become covered in raised white spots. The affected fruits often remain hanging on the tree throughout winter and are easy
to spot at leaf fall. Pick (or ideally prune) them off, because any that remain can cause mini cankers that trigger reinfections
next spring.This fungal disease infects
through wounds, particularly bird damage so do try
to keep bird damage at a minimum where
possible.
Expand Your Fruit Garden
Providing your soil isn’t too waterlogged or frozen, use this dormant
period to get bare-root fruit trees and cane fruits into the ground. Head to your nearest garden centres to see what they have on offer and have fun planning for next year!
Winter moth: At this time of year, wingless
20 | Issue 4 2024 | Allotment and Leisure Gardener
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