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[Gill batson]

Hello my name is gill I am quite new to gardening but my husband and I have an allotment and decided this year to start growing fruit trees. We have found it very tricky I have a Victoria plumb tree that if I am lucky gives me 3 plumbs a peach tree that gives me no fruit and I have grown an apple tree from a pip which is about 3ft tall but is a single stem how do I get it to branch out and why are my trees not fruiting can any one help please

[Bren In Pots]

Hello and welcome to the vine Gill

Sorry I can't help with your questions hopefully someone will come along soon who can.

[nickdub]

Happy to try to help :-

1) re the plum - a bit more info please :- rough age/size of the tree and where its growing eg open ground/shade etc
) tough to grow peaches in this country in the open - its not impossible depending on where you are, but it requires some knowledge and a fair amount of cooperation from the weather
3) growing apples from a pip is a bit like trying to wing £1,000 on the lottery - you might strike it lucky but the odds are you won't.

If you can give a bit more info on the ground you have available and what sort of fruit you want to grow, there's plenty of time to make plans for next Spring.

[Jay-ell]

Hi Gill and welcome to the vine.

You say that this year you've decided to grow fruit trees - when did you put the trees in and how old are they? You want them to get their feet down and bulk up the stem for a couple of years before they are allowed to fruit (I didn't do that with one of my apples and it darn neat snapped the stem - I had to cut it back to above the graft and let it regrow)

Are there any other fruit trees nearby - some fruit trees need a compatible pollinator (i.e. flowers at the same time) to fruit and those that are self-fertile can improve yields by having a pollination partner.

How have you pruned the trees - I think that plums fruit on older wood so if you prune all that out you get none (I say "think" as I haven't had plums on my trees yet), not sure about peach as mines only 1 year old.

Apples grown from seed are unlikely to produce fruit like the one they came from - you might have a wonderful new variety or may have something not so good, you won't know till harvest. I'm assuming that all the growth on the apple is from this year. Next year the buds along that trunk will start to branch out. When it's dormant (in feb usually) is the time to prune apples. If you cut off the top third then the side buds will burst into growth. The highest ones of these will grow more vertically and one of them will become the new "leader" of extension to the main trunk.

This apple tree might be quite vigorous as it's on it's own roots. A lot of allotment apple trees are grafted onto different roots which limit their vigour so they don't grow too big. Apple trees can grow BIG.

[Jimothy1275]

Hi Gill, welcome to the Vine!

[Lumpy]

Hello and welcome.

[Two_Sheds]

Before you plant any fruit tree: research the type of rootstock you need

Too many people are buying cheapo trees from supermarkets, which have unknown (possibly ginormous) rootstock

We have a cluster of German Supermarket Victoria plums, which all have vicious 3” thorns

[Small pumpkin]

Welcome to the vine