Whilst digging over the front of the plot I was coming upon loads of shattered glass.  There was far too much to dig out and clear so, after several trug fulls of shards and splinters, I decided that the only way of dealing with it was to plant up the area with perennial plants so that I wouldn’t have to dig in the area again.

When I was in London one of the plots near mine was known as “The Orchard” – it had 52 fruit trees as well as a lawn, pond seating area, sheds – despite that number of trees they were trained so that there was plenty of space.

Remembering this plot inspired me to experiment and plant out the square foot orchard.  I bought a number of cheap fruit trees from various budget stores.  In the end I bought 12 trees of different varieties:-

• Elstar Apple
• Jonagold Apple
• Granny Smiths Apple
• Coxs’ Orange Pipin Apple
• Concorde Pear
• Doyenne du Comice Pear
• Victoria Plumb
• Another Plumb
• A Cherry

I planted these out VERY close together – they are 18 inches apart in the rows with the rows being 2 foot apart – hence the phase square foot orchard.

This was an experiment – having the trees so close together should help to curb their vigor and hopefully convince them that they need to fruit to survive.

So far they are growing healthily – Ive summer pruned them so that they develop into vertical cordons and will be looking to keep them 6 foot high.  One of the Jonagold had 3 fruit on it – I know, I should have removed them so that it could have concentrate on building it’s strength and structure but they were my first fruit.

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