nearly there

[BUFFS]

I watered the apricot and peach trees in the back greenhouse today and they are now colouring up nicely, a week to ten days I reckon til I can start on them, and its absolutely p***ing down again, no change there then.....

[Bigmallly]

If you have had them a number of years, you're gonna have to talk me through your pruning regime.

[BUFFS]

that's the easy part, big pot, min 18ins across, about a 50ltr is ideal, train a good branch system for 3/4yrs to get proper strong branches, after its established, in the autumn each year, i trim a fair amount of the new growth, before leaf fall, that's easier, leaving about a third, or at least 2 new buds on each branch. each 3/4yrsI lift it out of the pot and remove about a third of the big thick roots and repot it into john innes No3, I pour at least 2 gallons onto it to settle the soil, they then go back into the greenhouse to protect from the rain we get, and wont need watering til spring. when they flower, I hand pollinate with a small kiddies paintbrush, stroked across each bloom each morning, for at least a week, once the fruit start showing, I feed with some tomato feed once a month and make sure they never dry out. that's about it, I wont fuss over stuff, if it wants to die it goes onto the compost heap, even the figs, treated the same but outside, are now getting a good size so given a reasonable summer we will have about 20 or so ,and from a 3ins cutting given away by a magazine, even the apricot and peach came from aldi (£3) and the range (£6) so with dustbins as pots they haven't cost a lot.. just have a go, plants just want reasonable conditions and then they will thrive, so its always worth a try , even here where we get monsoon summers and not a lot of sun, they still perform, maybe not as good as the south coast but worth the effort, the taste of them just off the tree is amazing....