Colin Evans

It's the season of fruit and mellowness and it's here with a vengeance, what with one of the best crops of apples and pears for a very long time.

Apples and pears

April may well have been one of the hottest and the heavy rains and floods of late summer may have been a disaster for many, the fruit trees just loved it and we have been rewarded with fruit in abundance.

On the other side of the coin, though, pests and diseases have been rife and and you will have been lucky to have escaped seeing both mildew and masses of aphids on the plants in your garden.

If we experience a mild winter, and who knows what the garden will have to endure this winter, then action to prevent over-wintering needs to be taken now to protect new growth next spring.

Eliminate those aphids

In previous years there were many different chemical products on the market to kill off the offending pests and diseases, but not now.

A good start is to clear away all old derbies from under trees and shrubs as this may well harbour disease and is best thrown in the bin.

Colin Evans

Also pruning out dead, diseased and decomposing material from trees will keep the branches healthy and strong. An application of either Traditional Copper Fungicide or a solution of Bordeaux mixture sprayed after pruning will help to kill off all over-wintering spores and insects.

If you have fruit trees, I will give you some tips on pruning when the time is right in a future issue, so look out for that.

As this is English apple season my plant of the week is the good old English apple.

Now is the best time to plant one and the garden centres are full of them. The exciting part is that there are so many varieties to choose from and you can plant them in the open ground or in large stone or terra cotta pots in a loam-based compost, just make sure each tree has plenty of drainage material to avoid water logging.

Cox's Orange Pippin

If you have a small garden then why not plant a cordon or an espalier on a fence or wall. These have been trained almost like climbers and all you do cut off the outward facing branches when they appear to keep the tree in shape.

Just have a good look and buy two that you like the look of if you can fit them into the garden and remember, many of the varieties are now grafted onto dwarf rootstock's which restricts growth.

My favourite varieties are Cox's Orange Pippin, Egremont Russet, Worcester Pearmain and the cooker Bramley Seedling.

Fancy your own potatoes for Christmas?

Do fancy your own potatoes for Christmas? Well it's not as hard as you might think. Potato tubers grown in half barrels, dustbins, pots or large plastic bags will yield a good crop if planted now.

Use a loam based potting compost and half fill the container and plant the tubers well down so they are well coverd with compost.

If you don't have compost you can get away with garden soil if it is not too heavy but best results are with propitiatory compost. Once planted keep evenly moist and just top up with more compost as the green tops grow.

'Late main crop' will be the type to go for and my recommendations are Pink Fur Apple which is blue pink in colour but cooks up a creamy white and Cara, Druid and Valour, which are white ptatoes and are fairly disease resistant. Have a go, you won't regret it.

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea should be given a trim now if they are in conservatories and any outside plants should come indoors once there are warnings of frost. Although if you have very sheltered spot most mature specimens will survive the winter outside and if conditions turn wintery then horticultural fleece placed over the top will protect them.

Scrape off the top layer of compost and replace with some fresh and add a layer of grit over the top to prevent soiled water from splashing onto the plant.

Tidy your greenhouse

Remove any greenhouse shading to let in plenty of light. Tidy up the greenhouse and remove old debries and unwanted pots and wash both inside and outside with hot soapy water. Give the inside a scrub down with a weak solution of bleach and cold water.