Dream Gardens: Alan Titchmarsh on growing fruit

It’s peak time for sowing and planting so there’s lots to do. 

Fruit, on the other hand, tends to be ignored until picking time. 

But if you want to tuck in to a bumper harvest, give fruit trees and bushes a little pampering now. 

Your reward will be plump, juicy fruit that leaves you quids-in when you see shop prices. 

Start by weeding and mulching under soft fruit and any fruit trees on dwarfing rootstocks and that includes cordons, fans and espaliers. 

Being shallow-rooted it can seriously reduce your crops if they are forced to compete with weeds for water and nutrients. 

Towards the end of this month, feed all fruit with a good general fertiliser such as blood, fish and bone so they start the season with a full larder. 

If you have fruit that has been growing in tubs for several years, scrape off the top inch or two of compost, then replace it with some fresh John Innes No3 with a little slow-release feed added to make it extra-rich. 

There’s no need to do this with newly-potted fruit. 

From now until mid-August, feed all fruit growing in containers once a week with diluted tomato feed and get into the habit of watering them frequently until the autumn. 

Don’t let them dry out. Water before it is badly needed. 

The plants have to suffer only the slightest water shortage to start shedding “optional extras” such as flowers or fruit so this is a job you can’t afford to let slip. 

There is still time to plant strawberries in beds, tubs or hanging baskets but to be sure of a decent crop it is worth paying extra for larger plants in 5in pots rather than skimping on small rooted runners. 

And if you want to try your hand at blueberries plant them now in large tubs filled with ericaceous compost mixed with 10 per cent bark chippings for aeration and drainage. 

Ideally grow two as a lone plant will bear fruit but two will cross-pollinate, which bumps up the yield greatly. 

Aphids will be appearing in herds on the soft tips of new shoots on fruit trees, particularly apples and plums but frankly I wouldn’t worry too much. 

The timing is just right to coincide with the spring hatching of baby blue tits so the parents will be round collecting up the insects for food in no time. 

But it’s worth beefing up your natural population of “good” insects such as hoverflies that hunt pests later in summer. 

Sow Limnanthes douglasii (poached egg flower) or a mixture of hardy annuals to attract them. 

Fan-trained fruit trees and climbing fruit will make strong growth soon so tie in the new shoots to their supports to help them stay in shape and stop stems breaking due to the weight of fruit later. 

An hour or two spent where it counts now will keep your freezer, larder and oven filled later.