
The plum tree will take several years to prune to the desired fan shape
Recently, Kay and I went out to a nursery and bought a self-pollinating plum and an orange so that we could fill a couple of gaps in the back garden. We cut out an avocado when it became obvious it was not going to set fruit in our locality, and the other loss was a dwarf apple that produced a mass of very small fruit over the years and did not readily respond to heavy pruning.
As I planted the two trees I thought how it was possible I might not ever see them fruit and, even worse, that after my time some future owner of this section will see the orchard as an area on which another dwelling can be put. I can’t feel too strongly about that — after all, when we built our office in the back section we had to remove a couple of very nice nectarine trees.
We had visitors the other day and they (as good Aucklanders mostly are) were not used to seeing fruit trees in a garden at the back of a house. It was a time to think back more than 30 years when Kay and I first got together here and the house was new and on a bare section of wind-blown sand, without paths, fences or living plants. There was one exception that we did not know of, and that was a piece of cabbage tree root that had survived the bulldozer. It survived and grew mightily over the years.
For the rest, it was a case of miserable survival in those first few years. The fruit trees were planted in the lee of three bales of straw to stop them being blown away.
We put down paths and together with our neighbours, who were as modestly incomed then as we were, built fences but with gates between each section for quick access for borrowing tools.
Then there was the micro-farm — the self-sufficiency period when we had hutches of rabbits along one fence and guinea fowl and bantams in another area. The sand on the section benefitted greatly from the by-products, and from the trailer loads of crushed sheep dags and straw we brought in from weekend visits to the Manawatu and Wairarapa. Everything grew in profusion, once we realized how thirsty the sandy soil was.
We bought a large freezer and filled it; we traded rabbit carcasses for other goods, and; we bottled and preserved fruit and jam. Incidentally, we were both working, and when we found time to all those things I can’t imagine.
Getting back to the fruit trees, I’ve always been keen on growing apples and pears as espaliers. The trees are trained into fences running north and south with horizontal pairs of branches. It’s quite amazing how much fruit can be produced from a relatively small area.
For peaches and plums the espalier doesn’t work, but there is an alternative and that is the fan. The important time is that first year when the tree has to be convinced not to concentrate its effort on growing a central leader, and one has to be quite ruthless with the secateurs.
Finally, our grape vine that once lived in Christchurch, and a cutting was taken to Stokes Valley to grow there for 15 years before another cutting started at Paraparaumu. We grew the grape (and a number of others) in competition with Kiwifruit over a pergola, but the Kiwifruit was just too vigorous. The fruit was welcome and plentiful, but the pruning was laborious.
The grape readily took over the pergola and extended along the garage wall as well. Today, it has two main arms from a trunk that is over 100 mm thick. One arm is about 5 metres long and the other is about 11 metres. A good season gives us several barrow loads of fruit to share with friends and neighbours, as well as “Grandma’s Black Juice” — a cordial we make from grape juice and sugar and which is a very good base for a hot toddy in winter.
There are only two of us today, and some of the fruit production has been reduced. Our freezer is still full, but the home produce tends to be balanced by Pitt Island mutton and blue cod and groper fillets.
So yesterday we planted a couple of fruit trees. The orange is nestled into the lawn while the plum has been given its first lesson. The leaders were pruned back to three, with the centre cut back and the outer branches tied back under a gentle tension against the wires. In another month or so I will adjust the tension and pluck out any runaway shoots that are pointing the wrong way. If there are any little plums this year they will be plucked off so that the tree concentrates on growth. Next year, perhaps I will have a few plums to harvest.
May be in years to come some one will pick an orange or a plum and wonder who and why they grew that way. Who cares? One is never too old to plant a tree.