More Fruitful than a Museli advert....

Well, maybe not, but don't crush my dreams ;)
It was really windy last night here. Being on a peninsula which is only just above sea level we do tend to catch a lot of wind, which can wreak havoc. We lost a big branch of the Puka from the back yard in the last big blow, so this morning it was out to make sure the fruit trees made it ok.
I am, I have to admit, inordinately proud of my fruit trees, my potted orchard. This is the first season for some of the trees but second for the peaches.

Rose Chiffon

I have two dwarf peach trees both of which produce wonderful fruit and have done from their first season. On the deck I have a "Rose Chiffon", which produces the most wonderful display of rosey pink double blossom in spring, so much that you can't even see the branches. It has lovely glossy green foliage, and while it does suffer from leaf curl, it doesn't seem to hold it back much. Its a later fruiter than the other peach I have and at this time while it has set fruit its still hard and green, and wont ripen till later in the year. I was picking its fruit last year in around late March, though i gather thats early for this variety, and usually its not ripening till around April/May. The fruits are worth waiting for though. Its a white peach, which are so often disappointing in the shops. They're fragile so in order to get them to the shop in any shape at all, they have to pick way too green for them to be good eating, even when they've coloured up. To my mind, the ONLY way to eat a white peach, is straight from the tree, when it's warm, and ripe....heaven!!
As you can see from the image, she's a leeeetle off centre in her container. Shes not drunk, and neither was I when I planted her! but its something thats developed over the last year or so. This winter I'm going to attempt to repot her and get her standing up straight.
The other thing I HAVE to do is get to grips with pruning, but as you can see with "Rose Chiffon" its hard to even SEE the shape of the tree with all that foliage, but its something that has to be done, so watch this space....there may be screaming lol

Honey babe peach

My other peach is also lovely, but its an earlier variety. This one is down by the other fruit trees, by the garage, and its called "Honey Babe"
She also produces a lovely show of blossoms in spring, and goes on to produce a heavy crop of lovely yellow fleshed peaches with a fabulous flavour. At the moment, her fruit is coloured up, but still needs a little longer to ripen fully. I can see its gonna be a race between me and the blackbirds here.
The apples all have some fruit on them too, atm. They're all new, purchased last year, so I wasn't expecting much if anything off them this year, and indeed some people would say I shouldn't let them fruit at all this year, but I really HATE having to remove fruit from trees, so I've just let them go as they will.

Gala apple

The tree at the side of the ramp is a Gala. She's on an M9 dwarfing rootstock, to restrict size, as are all my apples. The reason that the M9 stock reduces size is because it doesn't produce strong roots. This ofc in turn means that the trees need some support if they're subject to wind....hence the rather hefty stakes in most of my fruit tree photos.
I chose a Gala because they have smallish fruit, and since I'm the only one that eats fruit around here it makes it easier to manage, plus theyre a pretty fruit when on the tree, and I like that. This particular tree took a little while to get going, but it seems to be growing well now, and bonus! we have a few apples too.

Behind the Gala is another apple. This one is a Golden Delicious, and I wasn't sure it was going to make ANYthing of itself. I actually bought it from a chain store. It was obviously the last one of a shipment that had ended up being shuffled to the back of a display and forgotten about. It was bare rooted, and the paper it was wrapped in was dry, but when I asked, I was told I could have it for a knock down price, so I thought I'd give it a go. She was duly taken home and potted out with several other young trees, with slow release fertiliser, sheep pellets and compost, and left to get on. Well, in the course of time all the other trees flowered, and their leaves burst out.....and the Golden Delicious remained a stick. It finally got to the stage that I told the OH that unless I saw some life in it soon, it was out, as it was a VERY expensive stick. He said, "well, its still alive even if it doesn't have any leaves" so I decided to leave it a little longer. Finally she decided to put out some leaves and then flowered and even grew a couple of branches, and is now  looking like an apple tree, even to a few little fruit!

Montys Surprise

My other apple is a "Montys Surprise". This is a NZ apple and is supposed to have lots of health benefits, due to its high concentraion of flavenoids. It was apparently found as a chance seedling in Whanganui, and is now a big thing overseas!
Mine is under the garage eaves and has touched the gutters already. It also has several LARGE apples on it which I hope will ripen as Im curious to try them. They are apparently good for cooking or eating, and are on the tart side. I'd be quite happy with a cooking apple.

ballerina apple

The last apple that I'm growing is actually one of the Ballerina series. Thing is, I'm not sure which one, as I picked it up on special. It had obviously been through the wars, and no longer had its label, but given the price of them normally, and given that they were selling this one off at $20.00 cheaper, I thought I might as well have a go. Like the Golden Delicious, she took her time about getting going, but shes now looking healthy and also has a few fruit on her,  and in THIS case I'm perfectly justified in letting her fruit, as its the only way I'm going to be able to tell what apple she is!!

Garden Belle

As well as the apples, I also have a dwarf pear. This is something new, as for years in order to grow a pear you needed a BIG area as they get to huge proportions. This was very disappointing to those of us who loved pears but had a small garden. Pears are like peaches, and for much the same reasons. Bought fruit is often not good because they are extremely delicate, so the only way to really taste a GOOD pear, is to take it from the tree and ripen it indoors yourself. Note I said ripen it indoors. Pears are odd creatures in that they will get to a certain degree of ripeness on the tree, usually indicated by parting easily from the branch when gently lifted. They must then be brought in to continue to ripen to just the state you want them, but theres nothing like a really ripe pear. Its like a fruit drink in solid form!
The pear that I'm growing, is called Garden Belle, and shes lovely. Worth growing I think even if you don't want fruit. In spring she was a mass of white blossoms and now she has several pears, and shes already had a second flowering so there may be more yet.