Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: shokkyy on May 14, 2011, 18:15
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A while back, someone on this forum posted a link where you could get a free morello cherry tree for the cost of the postage, so I ordered one and planted it last year. It's only a tiny little thing but I can't believe the huge amount of fruit on it. I've never had one of these before, but do they normally fruit so prolifically at such a young age?
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:) Ten for the blackbirds one for you , ten for the blackbird............... :)
Loads of apples on my young Coxs Orange tree last year, two this year.
I think they grow well or fruit well but not both.
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It has not fruited yet! A lot may drop off before they ripen. Watering the tree profusely may help it hold on to them and yes, birds love them. You will have to net it.
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Rats, I was hoping birds wouldn't be so keen on morello because it's a bitter cherry. They never seem to bother my gooseberries, which are in the same bed, nor do they bother the gages, but they did get more raspberries than I did last year.
I do have a sweet cherry, can't remember the variety, which I'm fan training against a wall. That is an older tree than the morello yet only has half a dozen cherries on it.
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I have a mature cherry tree about 5 metres high which produces huge amounts of fruit every year and yet I rarely harvest enough to make one jar of jam. The problem is the birds prefer them before they are fully ripe so I don't think they'll be bothered by the bitterness of a morello.
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Sweet, Acid or Duke - the birds will have them all unless netted.
Word of warning - last year I netted my acid cherry and got a bumper crop, however the netting was too tight and all the new growth grew back and round on itself so had to be pruned heavily to produce an open and aesthetically pleasing tree. As most of the new growth was cut back there are very few cherries this year. In future years I'll net thoroughly with loose nets, or under a cage so that the new growth is not distorted.
SS
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I have a mature cherry tree about 5 metres high which produces huge amounts of fruit every year and yet I rarely harvest enough to make one jar of jam. The problem is the birds prefer them before they are fully ripe so I don't think they'll be bothered by the bitterness of a morello.
I've got a pear tree like that. It's a cooker, too, rock hard fruit, but every year the wasps get the lot before they're anywhere near ripe. I can never understand why they go after hard cooking pears yet ignore the beautiful sweet golden gages until they're really over ripe.