My Tiny Plot

Yesterday, I spent the whole day on an Espalier Pruning day at Painswick Rococo garden. It was great fun and I learned a ton about how Apples grow and how to maintain an espalier.

It was also a gorgeous setting in which to learn, with a central kitchen garden surrounded by hundreds of espalier Apples and Pear and a separate orchard including Medlers and Yellow Plums (which I had a sneaky taste of).

Thanks to Chris Hitchcock (the head gardener, on the right) and Bill Whitehead (an Apple and Pear expert, on the left) I now feel super confident about summer pruning my own espalier apple tree. Thanks also to Paul Hervey-Brookes for being the perfect host. Lastly, thanks to my wonderful under-gardener for buying the course for me and looking after Jackson for the whole day so that I could go!

So what did I learn?

Now is the time to start summer pruning Apple an Pear espaliers. Aim for the end of July to mid August. The reason you Summer prune is to restrict growth (after all an espalier is a restricted form) and to let in light to help the fruit ripen. The light also encourages buds for the following season, so everyone’s a winner!

Here are Four Steps to Summer Pruning Espaliers

1.Chop Down All Top Growth

Before you start pruning your espalier might look like this. Lots of long wippy shoots growing upwards. You should cut all the top growth down by about half so that you can see more clearly what you’re doing. Leave two long shoots unpruned, that are growing from the central stem. The reason you do this is to draw the sap upwards through the central part of the tree which reduces the amount of regrowth at the ends of the branches.

It should start to look a bit like this.

2. Prune Each Branch Three Leaves Up From the Basal Leaves

Inspect each of the branches that you’ve cut down by half. Find the basal leaf cluster (these are the clutch of leaves that are around the base of this year’s growth. In the photo below, the basal leaves are the three leaves coming from the base of the branch. Then the real leaves are the three after that (one is pointing backwards). You would make your cut above the third.

Angle your cut so that it slants away from the leaf - but ideally points away from the tree (so that the water runs away from the leaf and the tree). Don’t make your cut too angled and also not too close to the bottom of the leaf (as below).

Continue to work through the tree doing the same for each branch.

5. Dead, Diseased, Dying, Weak and Wayward

Next inspect the tree and take out all branches that fit the following description - DDDWW (Dead, Diseased, Dying, Weak and Wayward). Quite a few of the trees that I was pruning had Canker, which was rotting away various branches. I was told to just cut them off (since they don’t spray fungicide at Painswick).

4. The Finished Espalier

When you’re finished you should have a perfectly trimmed espalier, with lots of light getting in and with two wippy stems protruding from the top.

Sorry this ended up being so long but I needed to get all that I had learned down in one place. Hope it helps you out when you come to Summer prune your espalier Apples or Pears.

I’ve had a few people ask to see the whole garden in full-swing and not just a tiny glimpse. So here it is. In all its glory, my tiny plot, in full production. Quite tiny I know. But for a small space we’re harvesting a lot of produce. At the moment we can harvest Potatoes, Onions, Garlic, Cabbage, Green Beans, Cucumbers, Gherkins, Spring Onions, Stawberries, Raspberries, Blackcurrants, Blackberries, Lettuce, Courgettes, Herbs, Sunflowers, Gladioli, Cornflowers, Calendula, Sweetpeas, Echinacea, Sunflowers. And looking forward to Peaches, Apples, Grapes, Tomatoes, Sweetcorn, Leeks, Runner Beans, Pumpkins and Squash. Phew! The big gap you can see in the bottom left hand corner is where the Mangetout went over. I plan to put some Cos Lettuce in there in the next few days.

As luck would have it I took a photo of the garden in full swing at almost the exact same time last year. As you can see a few of the perennials were a little smaller than they are this year, including the Lavenders and especially the Raspberries (running along the left hand side of the bottom left bed). The craziness going on the far left hand wall is the doomed Tomatoes (with a Peach tree in there somewhere!).

How’s your garden going this year? Good, bad, better than last year?

I do love Echinacea. Some people say they look like wilted daisies and I suppose they do really but if you get up close, they’re sooo beautiful. I actually like the way that their petals hang towards the ground. It makes them look even more delicate and exotic than other flowers.

I have one sturdy perennial plant in the garden, grown mainly for cutting purposes (everything must work for its place here at mtp!) It’s definitely going from strength to strength. I’d say the plant has doubled in size since I planted it last year and it has also given me double the number of cut flowers. Perfect.

It’s also perfect for a kitchen garden because it doesn’t take up much room. The plant is pretty sturdy and all the flowers grow straight up on a long stalk. It hardly takes up any room at all - unlike my Lavender which is sprawling all over my pathways and consequently is on the ‘might have to dig you up and move you soon’ list.

I’ve no idea which variety it is (possibly Summer Sky) but it’s beautiful and will always have a place (albeit a sunny one) in my kitchen garden.

What cut flowers would you recommend? Are you growing any?

My Tomatoes are doing well. Despite this last week of almost continual rain they are starting to set fruit. I have eight plants in all, all outdoor. Four of them are in the sunniest bed in the garden and four in the ‘almost’ sunniest bed in the garden.

Last year, all of my Tomatoes were on the south-facing wall. They loved it until the rains came and blight set in. Now the south-facing wall is out of bounds for Tomatoes since blight can hang around in the soil year on year. But that’s okay - I’m over it. We’ll go with the sunniest bed for now.

If the rain continues, then I’ll be putting all my trust in Ferline’s reputed blight resistance - and a strategically-placed sun umbrella to keep the rain off.

Will it work? Who knows? All I know is that with small Tomatoes starting to form, it’s time to start feeding them (with Tomato feed) and crossing my fingers for fresh Tomato pasta come the end of August. How is everyone else’s Toms doing?

I’m having a small Blackberry disaster. I got very excited when I saw the first Blackberries ripening and couldn’t wait to try them. Quite a few ripened at the same time and one was so ripe it dropped off the plant! So I knew it was time to start picking them.

They were so plump and juicy, and very big too. I picked a good handful of them and trotted off into the house to show them to under-gardener. Then I tasted one… um… that must have been an off one. Try another. Err…nope this one doesn’t taste good either. In fact, none of them tasted good. Not good at all. I wouldn’t say they tasted bad, no not bad, they just tasted of nothing. Yes, that was it, nothing! And, let’s face it, in reference to Blackberries, ‘nothing’ is not a good look.

I’m completely thrown. Why would my perfectly gorgeous Blackberries taste of nothing? Why, why would they do that to me? I mean, it’s not like I’ve got my jam-making equipment at the ready or anything!

I’ve wracked my brains. Is it lack of sun? Bad pollination? Rubbish variety (Bramble)? Just the way cultivated Blackberries taste? I’m clutching at straws now. The big question - should I give it another year or should I dig the blighter up and buy another, better-tasting one instead?

Anyone? Anyone?

I took this photo today. The Cabbages on the left are coming up for ready for harvest. The ones on the right were planted a little later.

This photo I took when the Cabbage seedlings were being planted back at the beginning of April. You can just about see the Peas pushing through the soil on the left hand side too. What a difference.

When should you fold over the tops of your Onions to encourage them to start to ripen in readiness for pulling? Well, the answer is, when they start to do it themselves anyway. Once the bulbs are big enough and the tops are heavy then the plants will naturally start to bow their tops over. You can give them a helping hand by doing it for them and creating neat rows rather than messy beds.

When you do decide to bow the tops over make sure to do it gently and if you have more than one row bend the heads in different directions to get as much sunlight to the bulbs as possible. Remember the intention here is to ripen the bulbs and encourage the tops to dry out.

Once the leaves have dried out and you can pull the bulbs easily from the soil then your onions are ready for storing.

One of the easiest vegetables to grow is Mangetout. It’s also one of those vegetables that, if you grow it yourself, will taste completely different than anything you will buy at the supermarket. There’s no hint of bitterness or aftertaste which can be the downfall of shop-bought Mangetout. I think it tastes almost exactly as sweet as freshly podded Peas but has the advantage of being bigger and crunchier than a bowl of Peas.

Brilliant with fresh humous. At this time of year you’ll be harvesting at least a bowlful everyday from a modest clutch of plants. I wouldn’t be without it. Next year, I need a taller support though. I always forget how big the plants are and they end up trailing on the ground after they have scaled my woefully inadequate Pea-sticks.