Product Description

A guide to choosing and growing garden fruit. This covers the selection and care of tree and soft fruit, including pruning, pollination and pests, and a section on shop-bought fruit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5159 in Books
• Published on: 1990-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

From the Back Cover
A fully comprehensive guide to growing fruit in the garden. From strawberries to apples, fig trees to kiwi fruit, The Fruit Expert offers the best advice.

* Chapters on choosing the right fruit for your garden, tree fruit, soft fruit and even shop-bought fruit. * The Fruit Expert demystifies pruning, pollination and pest control.

About the Author
Dr. D.G. Hessayon
Dr D.G. Hessayon's Expert books have made him the world's best-selling author on gardening. Born in Manchester, he was variously a horticulturist research scientist, university lecturer, artist and newspaper editor before launching the Expert series in 1959. In 1999 Dr Hessayon was awarded a Guinness World Record Certificate for being Britain's best-selling living author of the 1990s. He lives in Essex, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.

Excerpted from The Fruit Expert by D.G. Hessayon. Copyright © 1990. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Botanists know exactly what they mean when they talk about ‘fruit’. A fruit for them is the seed-bearing organ of a plant. Luscious Pears and juicy Oranges are of course included – but so are grains of Wheat, Walnuts and dried Peas!

For the gardener the word ‘fruit’ has a much more restricted and vaguer meaning – and there is no general agreement where the classification should start and finish. All fleshy seed-bearing organs which are either cooked or eaten fresh for dessert are included. But do you include nuts (which are not fleshy) and rhubarb (which is not truly a fruit)? It’s up to you, but they are not included in this book.

Some fruits are traditionally picked from hedgerows – Elderberries, Sloes, Blackberries and hips of Shrub Roses. For practical purposes such sources can be ignored – if you want fruit without paying for it, you will have to grow your own.

Growing fruit in the garden is decorative, interesting … and rewarding when you consider shop-prices. It is therefore not surprising that the story of fruit growing in the garden is as old as the garden itself. What is surprising is the sophistication of the subject in those early days. In the 16th century numerous varieties of Apples grafted on to Crab Apple rootstocks were grown in British gardens and there were ‘Peares of all sortes’. In addition the textbooks of the day described white and red Peaches, Cherries, Bullaces, Quinces, Raspberries, white and red Strawberries, Currants, Mulberries, Medlars, Bilberries, Grapes, Gooseberries, Damsons, Apricots, Plums … a list which would do credit to a specialist catalogue of today.

These Elizabethan books also bemoaned the fact that British gardeners did not grow as many fruit trees and bushes as Continental gardeners – a criticism which could probably be made to this day. Only one UK garden in three grows fruit, and there are two basic reasons for this lack of universal appeal. First of all, there is the view that fruit growing is difficult and time-consuming. This of course is not true – once planted and established the fruit garden gives more for less effort than the vegetable plot. Perhaps some textbooks are to blame – descriptions of pruning often make it sound as complex and delicate as brain surgery. Secondly, there is the view that fruit growing is space-demanding. Visions of spreading trees, ladders for picking and the thought of room-sized fruit cages deter the gardener with a pocket-handkerchief plot, but fruit trees these days need take up no more space than rose bushes.

Things are now changing, and in recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in growing fruit. There are a number of reasons for this increase in domestic fruit culture. The garden centre with its container-grown plants has enabled trees, canes and bushes to be seen in flower and in fruit, and these containers are available for planting all the year round. In addition the introduction of dwarfing stocks has meant that Apple, Pear, Plum and Cherry can be grown as trees in small gardens. Catalogues are so much more exciting these days – there are new types of fruit such as the Kiwi Fruit and Cape Gooseberry plus new growth forms such as the ‘Ballerina’ Apple tree.

Fruit should be grown in every garden. A separate fruit garden is ideal, of course, but you need both space and money for such a feature. But soft fruit is quite at home in the vegetable plot, and non-vigorous tree fruit can be grown as specimen plants in the lawn or shrub border.

The great fascination is to be able to pick the produce in peak condition straight from the tree or bush. Another plus point is that you can grow delicious varieties which aren’t found in the shops.

An introductory chapter should end on a high note with words of encouragement and enthusiasm, but this one ends on a note of caution. Planting a fruit tree or bush is a long-term investment, which means that you should read the appropriate chapter carefully before looking through the catalogue. Then choose carefully, making sure that both the fruit type and variety are suitable for you particular conditions. For example, few varieties of Pear are suitable for northern and midland gardens despite the glowing praise for them in some catalogues.

Never guess that a variety will be suitable – do check. You might like Cox’s Orange Pippin, Golden Delicious or Granny Smith based on shop bought experience, but none of these Apple varieties is a good choice for the garden. You might think that the compact tree in the garden centre won’t be a problem in your small garden, but do check the rootstock before buying. You might think that the Raspberry canes look healthy, but check that they are certified virus-free. As stated earlier, fruit growing in the garden can be decorative, interesting and rewarding, but it can also be disappointing if you blunder into it without knowing what you are doing. The purpose of this book is to guide you along the right road.

Customer Reviews

Grow fruit in abundance with the help of this excellent book
Once again, Hessayon comes up trumps with his simple, easy-to-follow and well-illustrated guide. There's everything you need to know about growing fruit, from the qualities of different varieties to planting and care.
My particular favourite is the fruit troubles area, as the illustrations enable you to pinpoint exactly what problem you have and show you how to treat them.
This book is a must for anyone starting out or wanting to reinject some life into an orchard or a fruit garden.

A great book for any fruit growers.
I have owned this book for several years. I have found it to be invaluable in the choosing and growing of many different fruits. It has extensive sections and reviews with colour pictures on choosing different varieties of apples pears, peaches etc. This includes some more unusual varieties as well as those more commonly available. The reviews are as useful in telling you what not to plant as what to plant. There are reasonable sections on pruning (but I think this is better done by the RHS Growing Fruit book.) The section on diseases and pests is also very good with clear illustrations for correct identification of problems.
In summary an excellent book particularly to help with choosing which varieties to plant, although the prunning sections are a little breif.

New cover, but still old-fashioned inside
I have the 2002 edition, but it still only offers imperial measurements. While this may be an irritation for some, I do find inches and feet so much more appropriate for practical matters like gardening!

An excellent book with a great deal of practical advice on planting, mulching, pruning, picking, disease control, etc. I would prefer just a little more detail on these matters, however, and perhaps a slightly less comprehensive list of varieties - many of which are not availabe even from specialist nurseries.

But why change much - how much can gardening change?

I have just ordered the Rose Expert.