Going up in the world!

Since the Flower Show came to a close (during which we won two gold medals!!) we have all been busy back in the garden.




    Newly tied apple cordons ©Neil Langan



For the last month I’ve been pruning and tying-in the fruit trees in the walled kitchen garden, specifically plums and greengages. They have been pruned and trained in their ‘fan style’. This is very tricky technically, because they fruit on last year’s wood, which means, if you’re not careful you can end up with incredibly long branches with a few fruits right at the end. You tend to take off the long shoots in order to make dormant buds break. Ideally you have the fruits evenly spaced up each fan rib but on short, fruiting laterals. It takes years of practice! We have also pruned and tied in the apple cordons in the middle of the veg garden. All this work is required to be done from ladders so it makes it a long job for each tree. 



We have Victoria, Czar and Kirkes Blue plums and Dennison’s Superb, Old Greengage and Coes Golden Drop greengages. These are all historical varieties which were grown around 1910. These varieties were planted probably ten years ago now by a couple of us and by Simon Tetlow, our Garden Team Leader. They’ve now stretched a good 15 ft wide and reach up to the coping stones at the top of the wall. We are now enjoying the fruits of our labours as we are picking plums and gages for sale in the Garden Shop.

Since finishing the pruning we have been busy weeding in the kitchen garden. The weather has been very kind to the weeds and helping them grow! We’ve been unkind to the weeds in return, and have been hoe-ing them off for the last two weeks or so. We’re still cropping a considerable amount of fruit and veg for the shop including courgettes, cucumbers, cabbage, onions, beans, lettuce, potatoes and raspberries, nectarines, plums and greengages.

Further information about the walled kitchen garden at Tatton Park.

John Hoxworth, Craftsman Gardener