In your fruit garden in September

Blackberries ripening
in succession

September can be a busy time in the fruit garden. Continue to harvest autumn raspberries and an array of other fruit. Start to think about pruning, to maximise next year's harvest. As the evenings shorten, time spent indoors cooking and preserving will ensure you enjoy the fruits of your labour over the winter months too. Apple and blackberry and rhubarb crumbles, jams, jellies, and chutneys. Delicious…

Don’t miss Apple Weekend – October 15th and 16th at Ryton Gardens

Things to do in the fruit garden this month

Fruit Trees

Order new fruit trees and bushes.
Autumn planting allows plant roots to become established before winter, as the soil is still warm. Choose fruits and varieties that will suit the site you have in mind and look out for cultivars that show resistance to pests or diseases. Fruit trees and bushes are going to occupy the same piece of soil for many years, so good preparation of the site in advance of planting will lead to best results.

See our factsheet:
Planting fruit trees and bushes

The Organic Gardening Catalogue sells a large range of organically grown fruit trees and bushes.
Complete peach pruning
after fruiting
For best flavour, and storage, don't be tempted to pick apples and pears too early. The correct time for picking, and storage potential, depends on the fruit and the variety.
To test if an apple is ripe on the tree, gently lift it in the palm of your hand, giving a slight twist. If it is ripe, the apple will part easily from the spur.

Pears, on the other hand, should not be left to ripen completely on the tree, pears need to be picked while still firm.

See here for information about storing apples and pears
Encourage ripening of figs by removing leaves that are shading the fruit.
Complete pruning of wall-trained peaches and nectarines immediately they have fruited. Complete all pruning by the middle of September to avoid silver leaf disease. If you find any evidence of this disease, cut out the affected growth and disinfect tools afterwards. Cut out the shoots that have borne fruit, and any dead wood. Tie in replacement shoots.
Remove dead wood on wall-trained cherries. Shorten pinched-back shoots and complete tying-in. Cut out or tie down strong vertical shoots. Cherries are also susceptible to silver leaf disease.
Harvest cobnuts and hazelnuts when the husks start to turn yellow to brown.

Fruit bushes and canes

Japanese Wineberry
Ripe for the picking now is the delicious Japanese wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius). Berries are smaller than blackberries and are orange to cherry red in colour. Apparently the berries are delicious when soaked in red wine. The bush is highly ornamental and will grow almost anywhere. Cultivate and prune in the same way as for blackberries.
Continue to pick autumn fruiting raspberries. After picking the fruit do not prune immediately. Cut all the canes down to ground level in late winter or early spring.
For summer fruiting raspberries, finish removing this years fruited canes, tie in new canes and remove any weak or damaged canes.
Continue to plant strawberries. Plant before the end of the month as any later will hinder the development of a good rooting system before the winter sets in.
Ensure new plants are kept well watered in dry areas.

Black currant bush

Red currant cuttings

To keep black currants cropping well, prune the bushes any time from now to late winter.
The aim is to maintain a supply of new (pale coloured) stems. These are much more productive than the older, dark coloured stems. Cut out around one third of the older stems each year. If there are plenty of new stems growing up from ground level, cut the old stems back to the ground. If not, then cut the old stems back to a vigorous new, low, side shoot.
Red, white and black currants are easy to propagate from cuttings at this time of year. Only take cuttings from healthy bushes. Choose hard wood about pencil thickness and 20-25cm long. Leave all the buds in place and bury the cutting up to half its length in open ground.
Start by cutting out stems that are crowded and crossing, weak, or that hang close to the ground when cropping.
Harvest any remaining blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants and blueberries. All can be stored by freezing.
Complete pruning and tying-in of summer-fruiting gooseberries.
Scatter windfall fruit around the garden. Spoilt fruit can provide essential food for wildlife. Plums are a favourite of butterflies they adore their sugary juice.

Tender fruits

Kumquat fruits
If you have any tender fruit, such as citrus, growing in containers in the garden, now is the time to bring them in. A bright position in a conservatory or greenhouse is ideal, provided they are not allowed to get too warm. Citrus like humid conditions so it is a good idea to mist them regularly.
Olives are not fully hardy but will survive outside in a sunny spot in all but the harshest winters.

Weed watch

Start to remove mulches from around fruit bushes and trees. Add the material to the compost heap.
Clear all weeds around fruit bushes and trees. Weeds aren't growing as quickly now, but many are seeding!
For general information on weeds see our organic weed control page.

Pest & disease watch

If you use the same crates and boxes every year to store the apple and pear harvest, give them a good clean before using them again.
Try the citrus-based disinfectant available in the Organic Gardening Catalogue.
Pears with brown rot
Brown Rot becomes a problem for many fruits, including apples, plums and pears. Brown rot is an air borne fungal disease that produces concentric rings or white spots on the fruit. The disease is spread by contact, so all infected fruit whether on the tree or on the ground should be removed and disposed of to avoid further infection.
Garden Organic Members can view our factsheet on Brown Rot for more information.

Access to this factsheet requires members' password.
Find out more about Garden Organic membership. Non-members please can call 024-7630-8215 for a free copy.
Remove nets from soft fruit to allow the birds in to start their valuable work of clearing up pests over the winter. Cultivate the ground lightly or hoe around fruit trees and bushes to expose pests to predators.

Wasps enjoy ripening fruit

Protective barrier round
an apple tree at Ryton
Wasps can be troublesome at this time of year. They like to eat ripe fruit. Hang sticky juice in jars in the trees to trap them. You can protect choice fruit waiting to ripen by tying a paper bag around each one. Remember that wasps do have their uses too. Earlier in the season they will have been taking caterpillars from your cabbage plants to feed their young.
For more information on dealing with wasps nests, go to www.pan-uk.org
At this time of year, adult winter moths (which are wingless) start to crawl up into fruit trees to lay eggs or hibernate in cracks or crevices in the bark. Winter moth caterpillars are a real pest of fruit trees, and many ornamental plants, feed on the leaves, blossoms and young fruitlets during the spring.

Alternatively paint your own sticky barrier on trees over 2 years old with fruit tree grease, again to stop pests crawling up the tree to cause mayhem in the spring. A sticky band of grease or glue around the tree trunk, and any supporting stake (below the tree tie) will stop the moths getting up into a tree. If the tree is at least three years old, apply a band of fruit tree grease.
For younger trees, use sticky glue bands.

Barriers are available from the Organic Gardening Catalogue
Protect peaches and nectarines from wasps and birds. To protect wall or fence trained fruit, drape fleece or fine mesh over the tree. Secure it to a supporting structure, ensuring no gaps. Freestanding trees can also be draped with fleece, if you can secure it at ground level.
Silverleaf is a fungal disease of plums and other stone fruits that gives a silvery sheen to the leaves. This fungal parasite enters trees through wounds. The fungus grows within the tree producing toxins in the sap that eventually works its way into leaves. The infected branches die back with the fungus producing mushroom like growths on the dead wood. To control silverleaf disease (Chondrostereum pupureum) on infected trees cut back to healthy growth,15cm past infected branches, and destroy them. Sterilise the pruning shears after use.
Cut out gooseberry, apple and pear shoots infected with powdery mildew. Destroy infected shoots as fungal spores will be spread around the garden.
See our Powdery mildew and Gooseberry Mildew factsheets for more information.

Note: To access these factsheets you will need the members' password. Find out about Garden Organic membership here.

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