What's new, what's growing, what we're learning. Updates, guides and stories for people who take their garden seriously.
Fire blight is the most dangerous pome fruit disease and notifiable. How to recognise the suddenly scorched-looking shoots with the typical shepherds crook, why you must not prune yourself, and what to do on suspicion.
Brown patches on apples and foliage: apple scab is almost unavoidable in wet years. How to recognise it on leaf and fruit, why scab-resistant varieties save all spraying in the home garden, and what else helps.
Bright orange spots on the pear leaf: pear rust looks dramatic but has a decisive weakness. It absolutely needs a juniper as its second host. How to break the cycle and get rid of the rust for good.
An identification helper for the five commonest fruit tree diseases: apple scab, fire blight, brown rot, pear rust and peach leaf curl. How to recognise each by its damage, why fire blight is notifiable, and how an airy crown and tree hygiene prevent most problems.
Maggots in cherries need not be. Why early varieties out-ripen the cherry fruit fly, how yellow traps and a net help, and how to break the cycle in the soil.
The sour cherry bears on one-year-old wood and goes bare without pruning. How to divert the spent whips onto young shoots after the harvest, and why it differs from the sweet cherry.
Why the winter cut drives growth and the summer cut slows it, how to get rid of water sprouts and bring light to the fruit, and why cherries are a special case.
Hardy into the bed, Mediterranean into the container: why the variety name decides frost hardiness, how the fig forms two harvests, and when it is truly ripe.
In early July, CW 27, the late sweet cherries are ripe, and right after the last picking comes the best moment for summer pruning. Why stone fruit is pruned now and not in winter, how to harvest gently and prune step by step.
