Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: londongardener on February 04, 2008, 11:04

Title: Poor quality soil and fruit trees /soft fruit
Post by: londongardener on February 04, 2008, 11:04

I have a small hill/waste land at the end of my garden. It is soil covered with rubbish and I was thinking of planting 2 or 3 apple cordons and soft fruit (gooseberry, raspberry and white currants) there.
However I think that the soil has lots of rubble in it.

If I put lots of compost/manure etc in the soil can I still plant them ?
Has anyone done this ?
Or could I just put plant the fruit bushes/trees in a compost/manure mound.

Title: Poor quality soil and fruit trees /soft fruit
Post by: Ruth Cross on February 04, 2008, 11:19

I think if there is alot of rubble in there, you may have an issue with drainage. Although adding compost may improve the quality of the soil, the rubble will still affect drainage.
Not sure if its a good idea to plant fruit trees and bushes direct into compost mounds as sometimes too much organic matter can damage 'burn' the roots. But the varieties you choose to plant will have different requirements, I would check what soil types they require.
I'm not a fruit tree expert, I'm sure someone may think differently...so I may yet be proved wrong :roll:

Title: Poor quality soil and fruit trees /soft fruit
Post by: londongardener on February 04, 2008, 11:23

Quote from: "Ruth Cross"

Not sure if its a good idea to plant fruit trees and bushes direct into compost mounds as sometimes too much organic matter can damage 'burn' the roots.

I could I suppose plant them in soil / compost mounds.

Title: Poor quality soil and fruit trees /soft fruit
Post by: Ruth Cross on February 04, 2008, 11:28

Quote from: "londongardener"

Quote from: "Ruth Cross"

Not sure if its a good idea to plant fruit trees and bushes direct into compost mounds as sometimes too much organic matter can damage 'burn' the roots.

I could I suppose plant them in soil / compost mounds.

Exactly if you get the mix right. :D

Title: Poor quality soil and fruit trees /soft fruit
Post by: londongardener on February 04, 2008, 11:33

But do you think that because underneath them there is soil mixed with stones etc it would hurt the trees ?  Or assuming I feed them ok they should be ok ?

Title: Poor quality soil and fruit trees /soft fruit
Post by: Ruth Cross on February 04, 2008, 11:40

I would say that as long as the stones are not too large and there aren't loads of them they should be ok. You really want the roots to have a good chance of spreading deep and wide, trees with shallow roots will suffer in dry and windy periods.
The roots will find their own way around small stones, but lots of large ones may cause problems. Put in plenty of organic matter/soil mix under the roots to encourage them to go down rather than stay shallow, take out as many stones as you can as the less the better.