When my first child had an accident at home, I realised we hadn't childproofed the house as well as we could have. Thankfully, they were fine, but I learned my lesson and began a thorough inspection of my home and garden. I got to work addressing the various hazards we had overlooked, and I started this blog to help other parents think objectively about the hazards in their own homes. I post about a variety of topics, such as pool safety, choosing a safe garden fence, storing medication and cleaning products, window and door locks and kitchen safety for kids. I hope you find my blog useful and informative.
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Childproofing Your Home And Garden
Creating A Mini Orchard On Your Patio
Ana Gonzales
Do you love the idea of walking out to your garden and picking fresh apples for your daily juice, cherries for a pie or lemons for a batch of your favourite lemon curd? You may not have space for tall, sprawling fruit trees in your garden, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy your own mini orchard:
Choose Your Fruit Trees Wisely
Opt for dwarf fruit trees, which tend to reach a maximum height of 2-3 metres and won't sprawl any wider than 1-2 metres. Dwarf trees have been cultivated to produce heavy crops of standard sized fruit and can easily be grown in containers. When space is an issue it's best to opt for self-fertile fruit trees, which don't need a pollinating partner to produce fruit.
Your local garden supply shop will be able to tell you if your selected fruit trees are self-fertile. Fruit trees have a bit of a reputation of taking several years to start producing fruit, but dwarf varieties start producing earlier than full sized varieties. Choose trees that are at least 2 years old and most will start producing that growing season.
Prepare Appropriate Containers
Dwarf fruit trees thrive with plenty of sunshine, good quality fertiliser and well-drained soil, but they also need an appropriate contain to grow in. You'll want to choose deep pots that allow room for growth, but they should also be wide to accommodate trees with a sprawling shallow root system such as lemon and orange trees, so opt for pots that hold at least 15 litres of soil and are as wide as they are deep.
Fill you pots with a premixed potting soil specifically designed for fruit trees, which should be rich in phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium, or make your own with equal parts topsoil and compost. Once you've planted your trees you should place the pots on pot feet to prevent waterlogging and give them a suitable liquid plant food every couple of weeks during the growing season.
Give These Hardy Varieties A Go
Look out for these hardy dwarf fruit tree varieties when visiting your local garden supply store:
- Valencia Orange - This tree produces a heavy crop of sweet, seedless oranges that are delicious eaten straight from the tree or juiced.
- Lemonade Lemon - This tree produces lemons that are slightly sweet and lack the bitterness that's typical with this citrus fruit, so they are delicious in fresh juices and squeezed over salad leaves.
- Fresno Peach - This tree fruits in December and produces large, juicy peaches with yellow flesh.
- Grimes Golden Apple - This tree flowers mid-season and produces sweet, crisp fruit with golden yellow skin.
Now you see how easy it is to enjoy your own mini orchard, all that's left is to decide how many trees to get and what to do with all the fruit they're going to produce. To learn more, contact a company like Tenkate Landscape Supplies.
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