Fruit tree for a NW-ish facing garden?

[Nordmead]

it must be remembered that if the pests have nothing else to eat, then they will attack whatever food source is available: If you were hungry, you'd eat anything, but if there's plenty of food around, you'll pick the best.

well hopefully that wont be too much of a problem since im right next to a hedgerow with lots of things for them to eat.. and also theres an allotment like 200 metres away (as the crow flies )

although i do have a problem with ants "milking" aphids in my garden.. hopefully that wont be too much of an issue

I recommend that all home-grown apples are cut in half, just in case it's someone's home.

i do that with everything i grow, even if theres no sign of holes that they would have burrowed in through.. im slightly paranoid like that

[FB.]

Even what looks like a healthy fruit can have a grub inside.
Sometimes the grubs enter through the top or bottom of the fruit, where it is difficult to notice the entrance hole.
Sometimes the entrance hole is so tiny that you can't see it.
I had a nasty surprise earlier in the summer when a friend was demonstrating their lovely crop of healthy plums "heavy crop and not a bad one among them" he claimed.
I took down my usual "guard" and just took a bite into what looked like a beautiful plum - only to find that I got a mouthful of maggot excrement, hidden deep inside the plum.

[Nordmead]

I got a mouthful of maggot excrement, hidden deep inside the plum.

ewww thats vile definately cutting up my fruit more now

[FB.]

Maggots often attack the best fruits, while the action of their attack causes the fruit to colour even more and to ripen earlier than normal.

On a fruit tree, beware the largest, earliest-ripening and most colourful fruits - especially those that fall on the ground just before the normal harvest time.

[Nordmead]

Maggots often attack the best fruits, while the action of their attack causes the fruit to colour even more and to ripen earlier than normal.

i noticed this on my sweet pepper this year (and yes it was the largest one on the sunny side), it was red on the side that the maggots had been eating and dark green the other side.. it looked quite odd

[Nordmead]

ive just got back from the nursery and unfortunatley they only had a fan trained grenadier the only other cooking types they had were:

bramley's seedling on m26 and mm106
blenheim orange on mm106
bountiful on mm106
james grieve on mm106

all 2 year in 12l containers and i'm pretty sure they all had flower buds aswell for �25 which i thought was pretty good

never thought choosing an apple tree would take so much thinking

i think im looking for one that cooks to a puree, for pies and stuff.. so i may have to search the internet..

[FB.]

How much space do you have and how large would the tree be allowed to get - height and spread?

Many of the older types of apple tree have been around for so long and there are so many old trees of that type around that the diseases are now ideally adapted to attack them.
On the other hand, many modern varieties are bred with chemical sprays in mind (even organic uses some sprays) - and many of our modern varieties are from the same gene pool - mostly bred from either Cox or Golden Delicious.
Common ancestry can mean that the closely-related nature of modern varieties allows diseases to quickly adapt to attack the offspring.

[Nordmead]

How much space do you have and how large would the tree be allowed to get - height and spread?

well id say 18-20 feet tall would be okay and ive got at least 5 feet on each side although i could cut the other tree back a bit to allow more space


..oh theres me saying cant get too big and apparently thats nearly the size of a fully grown bramley

edit:

i say okay.. i mean maximum

[Nordmead]

well.. i bought the blenheim orange because they still had no grenadier.. its on mm106, will i need to stake it? id say its about 2 or 3 years old

[FB.]

It might be best to stake it for a year or two, until the roots get going.
I imagine that it's quite large above-ground, but with only a bucket-sized rootball confined to a pot.

I find that defying "conventional wisdom" works well for fruit trees in my area - here's what I would do:

I would try to plant it as soon as convenient.

I would dig a very generous hole - at least twice as wide and twice as deep as the rootball, if possible.

Put a hard-packed mound of soil in the middle of the hole, so that the tree will be able to sit firmly on the mound for support during planting.

Hammer a stake into the bottom of the planting hole.

Once the roots are out of the pot, I would loosen most of the soil off them (semi-bare-root) and do your best to untangle the rootball. Tangled roots will strangle each other, so don't worry if some get broken while untangling.
I deally you want to have lots of loose roots just hanging in mid-air if you lift the tree by the trunk.

Place the tree onto the mound in the hole and spread the lowest roots down the slopes of the mound. These roots will eventually become "tap-roots" and their anchorage and water-searching will be assisted because they are growing downwards and spreading.

Cover the lower roots with 2-3 inches of the soil mized with the original compost from the pot.

Then spread the middle layer of roots around the hole and cover with a few inches of soil and compost.
Finally spread the upper roots around the hole and cover with soil.
The middle and upper roots will become "feeder" roots.

Have the soil with a slight mound around the trunk, to encourage water to run-off (this will avoid crown rot, which MM106 is quite prone to).

Try not to have the roots bare for more than about 20 minutes.

Water well (a whole watering can). Keep the water an inch or so away from the trunk to help avoid rotting of the lower trunk form such a large amount of wetness all at once. The soil will settle by an inch or two and may need extra on top.

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The net result will be that your have changed it from a cramped, pot-bound, flat-bottomed, root system into a well-spread set of roots that would take it a season or two to grow by itself.
Also, roots won't grow from rich compost into normal soil (they stay where the best soil is). By removing much of the compost from the roots but mixing it into the planting hole, you are encouraging the roots to go and look for nutrients, which they would not do if still in their rootball.

Expect the tree to need watering during the first summer, but not too much water or it will get lazy - and not too near the trunk, to avoid crown rot.

[Nordmead]

looks like im going to be busy tomorrow

about the watering can.. would it be okay to use the same watering can i used for weed killer a month or so back? i did rinse it out quite a few times afterwards.. im not bein too ocd here am i?

[FB.]

Hmmm......weedkiller......I'd find something else to water with - just to be safe.
A bucket, a saucepan, an old milk bottle.....

[Nordmead]

just got the tree in... there was about 2 inches of soil and the rest was building sand so ive layered sand then compost a few times (no idea why i didnt mix it in) and put in some granular "fruit and vegetable" fertilizer aswell.. but since it all sand i shouldnt have thought that crown rot to be a problem?

[FB.]

Sand drains quickly, so waterlogging and crown rots are much less likely.
Damp soil is not a problem: it's waterlogging/non-drainage of water that can cause a problem with crown rot.
Don't worry about having layered the sand/compost and soil: natural ground settlement and the worms will move it around.

[Nordmead]

Damp soil is not a problem: it's waterlogging/non-drainage of water that can cause a problem with crown rot.

so would it be okay to have about an inch or so of sand around the base of the trunk? i dug the hole a tad to deep so theres a slight ditch which i think all the water would drain into