There’s something extraordinarily satisfying about planting a tree – you really feel like you’re doing the earth (and yourself) a favour and, this week, we happily planted a small handful of fruit trees along one of our borders. Into the ground we lovingly plunged two Conference Pears, two Katy Apples, two King of the Pippin Apples, two Majorie’s Seedling Plums and a Sunburst Cherry tree for good measure. It’ll take a while (a year or two) before we see the actual fruits of our labour but we’re confident they’ll be worth the wait.
Conference Pear
Conference is the most widely-grown pear variety in the UK. It crops heavily and reliably, and will grow in most situations. It is also one of the few pear varieties to be genuinely self-fertile, so you don’t need another pollinator nearby. In turn it is a good pollinator for many other pears.
Katy Apple
Katy is one of the best early/mid season apple varieties. It is very reliable, producing large quantities of attractive red apples, regardless of the weather or the horticultural ability of the owner. The tree grows in a neat and tidy fashion and rarely needs pruning. The spring blossom is particularly attractive, and also long-lasting, making it an excellent pollinator for many other apple varieties.
The apples are medium-sized, usually pink/red to bright red in colour over a light green yellow background. The flesh is a pale cream colour, and has a firm and fairly crisp consistency – although not as crisp as later apple varieties. Like most early apples, the flavour is on the sharper side, with a hint of strawberry in a good year. It is usually very juicy, and when fresh from the tree the juice goes everywhere as you bite into it. Katy is a very versatile apple. If you get too many to eat (which is the usual situation with Katy), then it is an excellent variety for juicing, and it can be used for baking.
King of the Pippins Apple
King of the Pippins is a widely-grown apple from the Victorian period. It is very typical of the “reinette” style apple, with its flushed orange skin and firm rather than crisp flesh – quite different to the modern supermarket apple. King of the Pippins is a versatile apple, which is probably the main reason for its success. Although usually considered a dessert variety, it can also be used for cooking – particularly French-style patisseries, since the slices keep their shape when cooked. It is a good juicing apple too, the juice has a good robust flavour and can also be used in cider blends.
Majorie’s Seedling Plum
Marjorie’s Seedling is the main late-season commercial plum grown in the UK – and also an excellent choice for the garden or small orchard. It is a good culinary plum, and very good for eating fresh when fully ripe. Marjorie’s Seedling is attractive to commercial growers because it is vigorous, hardy, disease resistant, and a reliable and heavy cropper. These qualities mean it is also ideal for the garden or small orchard – and by growing your own you can also get a far better flavour than is possible for the commercial grower – the trick is to leave the plums on the tree longer. And if you like fresh plums, there are not many other ones around this late in the season.
The fruit is large, plum-shaped, and purple, becoming blue-black when fully ripe, with a heavy bloom – overall very attractive. The flesh is greenish-yellow, juicy, quite coarse, and noticeably veined, wiht a good strong plum taste. The stone is clinging. For eating fresh make sure you leave the fruit on the tree as long as possible to get the best flavour – it is very pleasant straight from the tree on a cold autumn morning!
Sunburst Cherry
Sunburst is a good modern cherry variety, with soft flesh, and a good sweet mild cherry flavour. It is also easy to pick the large fruits.