In your fruit garden in April

Contents

• Top fruit – apples, pears, plums, cherries and other fruit trees
• Soft fruit
• Pest and disease watch

General

• Water newly planted fruit trees, bushes and canes if the weather is dry. Wall trained trees or fruit in containers are particularly prone to drying out.
• Keep an area of at least 1m x 1m weed free around all fruit trees and bushes. Weeds, particularly grass, compete for food and water and can stunt the growth of a tree or bush.
• 
  Currant blister aphid symptoms
  Check all fruit plants regularly for aphids (greenfly). They multiply very quickly. See our Aphids factsheet for more information
• Feeding fruit plants need not be an annual event - but now is the time to do it if appropriate. For more advice on feeding tree and bush fruit see the Advisory note How to take care of fruit.

Top Fruit – apples, pears, plums, cherries and other fruit trees

• Remove tied on grease bands that have been in place over winter.
• Towards the end of the month untie branches of wall trained figs which have been bundled together for protection - leave until May in cold regions. Remove any crossing or frost damaged branches. Cut back, to 5cm, branches that have become long and bare.
• 
  Train grape vines
  
  
  Feed citrus

  Tie in and begin to train vines. They will be growing rapidly, and can easily become a mass of foliage, which will produce little fruit, if neglected.
  Select the strongest shoot on each spur to tie in. Pinch back weaker growths on each spur to 2-3 leaves to act as reserve shoots in case the selected shoot breaks during training.

• Top-dress citrus in containers using compost made up of equal quantities of loam, garden compost, coir and sharp grit.
• Hand pollinate peaches and nectarines using a ball of cotton wool or a soft bristled paint brush. Repeat daily from when the flowers first open until the petals fall.
• Remove blossom from newly planted fruit trees, the trees will need all of the energy to establish well.
• It is now safe to prune all trees, such as cherries and plums, which are in the family Prunus.
• Prune fan trained stone fruits such as cherries, plums and nectarines. Prune out any shoots growing into the wall or directly away from the tree. Then thin out any overcrowded and crossing shoots, remove any dead, diseased or damaged shoots. Tie in the remaining shoots to the training wires. Pruning cuts heal quickly at this time of year, reducing the risk of fungal diseases, such as silverleaf and bacterial canker, getting in to the tree. There is no need to treat the cuts with anything
• 
  Compost trench
  
  
  Plant bare root strawberries
  Check through any remaining apples stored from last year. If no longer edible, feed them to the birds, or use them to fill a compost trench.

Soft Fruit

• Plant bare root strawberries once the soil begins to warm up. Strawberries like a well-drained soil, rich in organic matter. Don't overdo the fertility though - you will encourage unwanted lush growth. For hints and tips, see our advisory note How to grow strawberries

• Cover strawberries with cloches for an early crop. Remember to allow the bees access during the day when the plants are flowering, or you wont get any fruit.
• Continue to cover strawberries for an early crop with polythene tunnels or glass cloches. Remember to ventilate on warm days, especially around flowering time for pollinating insects, replacing covers at night.
• Sow melon seeds towards the end of the month for planting out in a cold frame in late may after the last frosts. Sow two seeds on their edges into small pots, cover with 2cm of compost and keep at a temperature between 22-26°C. Once germinated remove the weaker seedling and grow on at around 25°C.

Pest watch

Aphid damage on cherry


Peach leaf curl


Protect wall-trained peach
& nectarine from rain

As temperatures are beginning to rise now, regularly inspect plants in the fruit garden and deal with problems when they arise to stop pest numbers getting out of control.

• Look out for Pear leaf blister mite. The first signs are pinkish-red pustules which develop on unfurled pear leaves at blossom time. Subsequently, yellow, red or green blisters can be seen on both sides of infested leaves. This can look very similar to peach leaf curl disease, but is caused by a mite, not a fungus.
• Protect wall trained peach, nectarine and almond trees from the rain to reduce the risk of peach leaf curl disease. Any protection needs to be in place from before bud burst, until the leaves have appeared. The cover should be open at the sides to allow access for pollinating insects.
• Apple powdery mildew - a common disease - can show symptoms this early in the season. A white powdery coating appears first on leaves and shoots. Blossom may be affected, causing it to wither and drop. Pick off and prune affected shoots.
• In spring and summer, white fluffy outgrowths can appear on apple tree stems and branches. This sticky 'wool' is a protective wax secreted by breeding colonies of the woolly aphid. This is a common pest of apple trees; it also infests other plants, including ornamental crab apple, Cotoneaster, hawthorn and Pyracantha, Sorbus.
•  Blackcurrants vulnerable to big bud mite (where affected buds appear larger than normal) may be showing signs of reversion virus. Symptoms will be evident once the plant flowers, flowers being red rather than grey. Dig up affected plants and put them in green waste bin. Resistant cultivars include : 'Foxendown', 'Farleigh', or 'Ben Hope'.

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