plot just for fruit?

[chrissie the chippy]

I've got a big dilema at the moment. I have a very nice sized plot in a great location, probably the best placed plot out of them all. But I can't dedicate the time (not motivation) to it to grow veg. I can never get on top of it It is riddled with bindweed

I was comtemplating giving up the tenancy, which I will probably kick myself for in a few years!

My question is, does anyone use their plot purely for growing fruit? I am allowed to have trees, so I'm guessing any other fruit will be ok.

I would imagine the upkeep will be a lot simpler and less time consuming?

I was thinking of covering the plot with cardboard (I can't afford the weed supresent at the moment), killing everything off underneath through not letting in any light... (it has just been rotovated, which I know was a bad idea re bindweeed) then grassing all but where the fruit trees bushes are.

Is that completely mad?

[Sanjo]

Well Chrissy, I don't have an alotment but I do have a fair few fruit trees/bushes in the garden. Fruit is going to be a long term answer to your problem. However, how much fruit do you as a family eat? Would you be interested in bottling/preserving it.
If you are talking about just making the odd apple pie them it probably wouldn't be worth the cost of hanging on to the lottie.
I have jostaberries, blackcurrants, goosberries, rhubarb, blackberries as bushes and apple and plum trees.
What we don't eat we preserve and it lasts us all winter and well into the following year.
Bottled fruit can make a very quick dessert, just add a bit of custard / ice cream or youghurt.
From the point of view of keeping on top of your plot, I would have said that fruit would be ideal. It won't take anything like the upkeep that veg on a lottie would and, of course, you will still be attending to your garden veggie plot as well as the children (I saw your other thread regarding 3 x 1m raised beds) so the occasional pruning and the harvesting should be all you need to do.
Covering between the fruit with cardboard will certainly weaken the bindweed, or at the very least hide it!!
We put weed suppressant down and covered with bark chips to keep it tidy and it does work.
If it was me then I would go down the road of fruit. That way you get the best of both worlds, but I expect others will have their ideas.
You have to work out whether the initial outlay in trees and bushes is going to be worth it, especially if you are not big fruit eaters.

[chrissie the chippy]

thank you Sanjo we love fruit here, the more the merrier! especially the children.

I think the dream plot would have a couple of apple trees, pear tree a peach tree (we've got several plums in the garden) oooh and cherries too!

Then all the different bushes... a whole bed of strawberries!

I'm guessing we would have a few very busy periods preserving the fruit, but that would be fun

I suppose I'll just need to work out the cost of trees. I'm sure the other allotment holders with currents wouldn't mind giving me cuttings for currents....

[Sanjo]

Your welcome!
Places like Lidls, £1 shop, Wilkinsons etc sell fruit trees and bushes, so from that point of view outlay doesn't need to be enormous and Tesco can supply the cardboard!!
Trees and bushes do take up such lot of space so being able to have a mini orchard away from the garden might work out really well. Good luck with it anyway.

[NOG]

I have one plot for fruit....damson, apple, plum, pear..strawberry, loganberry, plus lots of others.

It still takes lots of looking after.

[jackie j]

The plot next to me is a fruit only plot. They have white currants, red currants, blackcurrants and raspberries. Also along the edge they have Asparagus. To keep the weeds at bay they have covered the whole area with black weed control fabric. They only have to do a bit of weeding and pick the fruit. It means they can keep the plot until they can put more time to it.

[Hans Mum]

my plot is half veg half fruit, the fruit half has grass which i just strim.....am thinking of covering it with cardboard and weed control fabric topped with bark chips when the council deliver the next lot

[bluemoon]

There's a book called something like 'Making a Forest Garden'. Sorry I can't remember the exact title or author. Basically the idea is you grow a few fruit trees dotted around, then fruit bushes and canes surrounding them, then strawberry plants, rhubarb and the like around those. You can also plant perennial veg and herbs. Once it's planted up it needs virtually no maintenance except a bit of pruning and harvesting. The idea is that the plants grow in a natural way similar to a forest where you have the upper tree canopy, and then bushes then ground plants with everything producing on different levels, and because there's so much ground cover you have little or no weed problem. I assume you'll need paths though. The book might give you a few ideas anyway. I'll try and find the exact title, but I'm off to a wedding in Cheshire in a few minutes so I might not have time until after the weekend.

[Snadger]

A litle orchard would be ideal for a chooks run...................you deffo wouldn't need to worry about weeds then!

[weekendwellies]

How about half fruit/quarter veg/eighth flowers/eighth shrubs.

[zazen999]

My lottie neighbour has 2 plots with different 'owners' [one is a trust plot and one is council]. The Trust one he has made into his proper garden and the council one is for mainly fruit and he chuck potatoes in 1/4 of it. He chucks down loads of w-r-manure and hoes relatively infrequently. He is having chickens at the end by our shed.

[BFG]

Sounds good to me. i've been meaning to put my name down for a lottie, purely to grow fruit and other low maintenance stuff like spuds, and rhubarb.

As long as you remember you're only renting it and not spend too much on trees. I'd go for loads of soft fruit. BIG strawb and rasp beds.

Maybe put a few cheap ALDI/LIDI £5 trees in.

On the plus side though, well designed and setup, you could get away with a minimal amount of maintenance and therefore be capable of keeping it going indefinitely.

And it's always there if you get more time to do other stuff.

you could make it into a wildlfie haven too. Loads of herbs and flowers (for edible/companion planting reasons obviously.. ).