Community Gardens

Pruning Fruit in Goresbridge Community Garden

March 21, 2013

This time last year we were having a mini heat wave and drought followed by weeks of rain, yet here we are approaching the end of March and we still have snow forecasts! It makes you wonder what weather is in store for us for the rest of the year and how climate change will affect us all.

One thing for sure is that food prices will increase  as the unpredictability of the seasons makes it increasingly difficult for farmers to grow food crops or animal grain. As a result we’ll definitely be aiming to grow as much as we can here on the Greenside Up patch and I’ll be helping as many community gardeners to grow as I can too,.

Strawberries in Goresbridge Community GardenWith soil temperatures so low we’ve been very limited with what we can sow outside but that worked to our advantage this week in the community garden as it meant we could prune the fruit bushes and trees. I’ve included links to the RHS guidelines on pruning and care as they’re excellent for reference.

pruning apple trees in the community gardenWe started with the apple trees. There are two in the garden that, although still young, produced lots of fruit last year.

Then we moved over to the blueberries. Two have been planted in a large container full of erricasious (doesn,t contain lime) compost.

Blueberries

Blueberries in Goresbridge Community Garden

We finished by tidying up the strawberries which had temporarily been planted in the herb wheel. We plan to move them again into guttering that was donated by Anne (and carried to the garden!) which will be hung up in the polytunnel once we have the plastic cut to size. (There’s a blog post here on how to look after strawberry  beds.)

Strawberries in Goresbridge Community Garden

Lots of strong roots on the strawberry plants

Hopefully next week we’ll be sowing the onions, garlic and potatoes if we get a few dry days in between!

4 Comments

  • Reply bridget March 21, 2013 at 8:15 pm

    So cold here in Roscommon….and more to come. Hopefully it means a good Summer will follow. Accordinng to the weather forecaster in New Zealand we are to get a good Summer. Fingers crossed.
    Bridget.

    • Reply greensideupveg March 21, 2013 at 8:39 pm

      Oh I do hope so Bridget, it would lift everyone’s mood so much apart from anything else! I’ve started seeds on my heated bench in the polytunnel too but suspect I may have to sow again.

  • Reply Naomi Lavelle March 22, 2013 at 10:00 pm

    Thanks, another lovely post, I didn’t realise we could prune the fruit trees now, might do a bit of that at the weekend as I feel it has been so long since I did anything in our garden!

    • Reply greensideupveg March 24, 2013 at 7:35 pm

      Thanks Naomi! Hope it stopped raining enough for you to get outside this weekend!

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