Hedgehogs and the garden

Courtesy of Simon Holt/simonhenry700/flickr.com

If you have trouble in your garden with slugs and snails, make your garden desirable to hedgehogs; your slugs and snails problems will magically disappear! But how do you make your garden desirable to hedgehogs?
Hedgehogs by nature do move around a lot. Therefore if the garden is fenced in, do make sure there is a wide enough gap at soil level, roughly the size of a football, to allow the hedgehog to travel. Secondly a hedgehog needs rough corners or patches in the garden where it can hide. They love a mixture of semi-wooden plant material, dry grass, which can also provide warmth during the winter months. Here in the UK there is a hedgehog club, which actually sells hide outs or will provide drawings showing how to make one yourself. Hedgehogs love snails and slugs, that’s their staple diet. So never spread around slug pellets as it will kill them or make them seriously ill. If you like to feed them use cat food but NEVER milk on a saucer. An ultra tidy garden does not offer anything of interest to hedgehogs.

Ten fruit tips for June

Pitmaston Pine Apple. Photo courtesy of Lawrence Wright/flickr.com

1. Thinking about planting some fruit trees? Even though the best time to plant is from November to April, when the trees are dormant, it’s now that you should be planning the site, and preparing the soil. That means: manure! Click here to read more.

2. Fruit trees: if you see shoots which are showing damage caused by mildew, these need to be cut out.

3. Aphids and various caterpillars are becoming more active. If young leaves are beginning to curl up and leaves are being punctured with holes or leaves being eaten, it is a good idea to visit your garden centre. These places usually stock a wide choice of ways of dealing with such problems.

4. Shoots which are being damaged by canker need to be cut out by secateurs and removed from the site. The wounds need to be sealed to prevent new infection. “Heal and Seal” or similar products are the correct compounds to use.

5. If rain has been in short supply, watering the trees at this stage is very beneficial to the trees. If the growth of the trees is stunted, weekly foliar feeding can be a real help for the trees to get over the problem.

6. Leaves which have been damaged by the fungus called Peach Leaf Curl, need to be cut off and disposed of in the non-recycling bin.

7. A couple of pruning tips: if the trees are growing too strongly, it is advisable to remove the growing tips of the strongest shoots. Do not prune any espalier, fan or cordon trees until later in the season.

8. For all types of fruit, organic matter and a good soil structure is vital for good growing. This is the perfect time of the year to get your plot well dug, drainage improved and plenty of organic matter added to the soil.

9. If you grow some strawberries, now is the time to place the straw underneath the trusses of fruit. This will stop the mud splashing on the fruit. Also make sure the blackbirds don’t eat the fruit before you do. Netting is essential.

10. Gooseberries and morello cherries are two of the few fruits which do well on the northerly side of a building, shed or fence.

 

Fruit tree maintenance, seasonal tips, early June 2013

Fruit set

Because the season is approximately 3 weeks later then normal, there are various points which are of importance now.

In general trees which are 4 years or older have shown a good deal of blossom. If this is not the case then bullfinches may have been at work in February. Or if there are plenty of pigeons around, these birds can strip the majority of the early developing leaf as well as the developing blossom.
If fruitset looks good then wait until early July before thinning the fruit. This is to ensure that the natural thinning has finished before you start thinning yourself. Thinning is important, because if the trees are having to mature too many fruits, then blossom next season will be sparse and very weak.

Planning a new orchard

Well-rotted manure. Photo courtesy The Word Factory Ltd/flickr.com

To create a successful multi fruit orchard, it is very important to carry out the various soil preparations during this time of the year. The winter months, the correct time to plant fruit trees, are often not good for soil preparation, as the soil is already too cold and handles badly. The quality of the soil in the planting hole will determine how quickly and how well the newly-planted tree settles down in its new home.

The rootstocks that you will be using depends on the space available for planting fruit trees. Dwarf rootstocks are recommended when limited space is available. If a good deal of space is available, then the trees would do best if planted on semi-vigorous stock such as MM106, Quince A and St Julien A. These trees need to be planted approximately 3.5 to 4 metres apart. The exact number of trees needed also depends on the proximity of other large trees, such as hedgerow trees, oak, ash and sycamore. Fruit trees do badly when planted on the live roots of other trees. Follow this link to find out more about tree size and rootstocks.

I think that it is a good idea to set out the orchard at this time of year, initially using 6-foot tall bamboo canes. This way you can mark the planting spots of your new trees, in relation to hedgerows, buildings etc.; it gives you an idea of how the new multi-fruit orchard will look. Variety choices can only be made once you have decided which type of fruit you want to plant. Follow this link to view a list of fruit tree varieties.

The ideal pH of the soil is 6.3 to 6.8. Outside those limits, nutritional deficiencies will occur when the trees get older. Fruit trees love well-rotted good organic stable manure, provided straw is used as a base material and not sawdust or wood chips. The more manure you can work into the ground during the summer months, the better the trees will perform in years to come.