In your fruit garden in September

Blackberries ripening
in succession

As the weather starts to get a little nippy September can be a busy time in the fruit garden. Continue to harvest an array of fruit and at the same time be thinking of planting and 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. Yummy!

Things to do in the fruit garden this month

Fruit Trees

Start ordering new fruit trees and bushes.
Planting in autumn 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 factsheets:
Fruit tree suppliers and Planting fruit trees and bushes

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

The Organic Gardening Catalogue has a large range of organically grown fruit trees and bushes.
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, lift it in the palm of your hand, giving a slight twist. The apple will part easily from the spur if it is ripe, if the spur snags, the apple is not yet ready.

Pears should not be left to ripen completely on the tree, pears need to be picked while still firm. A good indication to when pear fruit is ripe is a slight colour change, to a lighter green in most cases.

See here for information about storing apples and pears
Encourage ripening of figs by removing leaves that are shading the fruit.
Complete peach pruning
after fruiting
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.
Towards the latter end of the month harvest autumn fruiting raspberries. After picking the fruit do not prune the canes immediately. Cut 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.
Blackcurrants
- before pruning

Blackcurrants
- after pruning
Prune blackcurrants and blueberries any time between now and late winter. Aim to remove about one third of the bush each year. Cut back low down to encourage new shoots from the base of plants. Increase your stocks by taking 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.
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 have a lot of apples and pears to store overwinter then you'll probably use wooden crates to store them in. These need an annual clean to remove any sheltering pests or diseases. Wrap each individual apple in greaseproof paper or newspaper. This will prevent infection spreading from one fruit to another.
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 at this time of year. It 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. Try to tolerate wasps wherever possible but if the wasps become a nuisance the safest option is to call in a pest control expert. Ask them to use a soap or synthetic pyrethroid spray, rather than carbamate or organophosphate compounds.
For more information on dealing with wasps nests, go to www.pan-uk.org
At the end of the month think about adding greasebands to the trunks of fruit trees. This is a preventative control method of the pest winter moth which likes to crawl up into trees and lay eggs or hibernate in cracks or crevices in the bark. The caterpillars feed on the leaves, blossoms and young fruitlets during the spring. If the tree has a supporting stake, tie a band around that as well.
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.

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. Free standing 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 on infected trees cut back to healthy growth,15cm past infected branches and destroy them. Sterilise the pruning shears after use.
Check all fruit trees and bushes regularly for aphids.
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 the factsheets you will need the members' password. Find out about Garden Organic membership here.

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