How to Plan, Plant and Grow your own Fruit Trees | tips & tricks for small & large gardens

Wade Muggleton, apple addict, shares how you can grow your own fruit trees in small and large spaces.
Wade has been growing fruit trees for over 20 years. He has over 30 varieties in his permaculture back garden - Station Road Permaculture - and more recently over 100 varieties in his field orchard.
Here Wade chats with Maddy Harland, Permaculture Magazine editor, who has been growing a range of fruit on chalk downland for 30 years.
Learn how to grow fruit trees on various scales; how to choose the right rootstock for your space; how to find the best varieties for you; the best orchards to visit; how to prune for maximum yields; and how to keep your orchard healthy with chemical-free methods.
Wade and Maddy also explore the importance of adding biodiversity for wildlife and beauty, how to use your harvests and how to encourage others to get involved.
Orchards, whatever their size, provide delicious local food for pollinators, birds, bats and of course people. They can be beautiful and enjoyable spaces for communities, families and anyone who wants to connect more with nature while growing food.
0:00 Introduction
01:56 How fruit trees can be scaleable
5:56 Rootstocks and how to select the right ones for your garden
13:55 How do you decide what varieties work best in the garden/field?
18:48 Best places to see orchard systemsin all their glory
20:46 Chemical-free maintenance strategies
26:51 The best way to learn pruning
31:46 Using yourharvested fruit
33:40 Adding biodiversity and beauty
39:14 How to encourage other people to get involved
42:42 The most surprising thing to happen in an orchard
All of this and more features in Wade's 'The Orchard Book' available with 10% off at: bit.ly/34bEqUq

[@theressomelovelyfilthdownh4329]

I have five apple trees on my little allotment plot. The oldest at roughly twenty years old is also the smallest at four foot six inches max. It's a good example of a small tree anybody could grow. Or if somebody was looking for something they could manage whilst in a wheelchair.
There is a great range of fruit trees out there on the dwarfing root stocks. And since they are so small and easy to manage, why not get two? Two trees are about £50-60ish from any decent online stockist. And you will get more than enough apples for a few pies, and some fresh off the trees.
If you want to save money and don't mind waiting a few years. Then get a pair of what they used to call dwarf patio apple trees in the local store. I assume they still use that terminology today? Just plant them, add a layer of mulch around them and let them be for a few years. I wouldn't prune anything unless it's rubbing or damaged etc. Just let the tree do its thing. If you get trigger-happy, you'll only be making more work for yourself down the line. And get fewer apples as a result of all that hard work.

[@CatherineandRob]

Wonderful sense of fruit farm history. Thank you.

[@PermacultureMagazine]

Thank you!

[@laurad2136]

Thank you both for this video.. great questions and answers for someone like me who is dreaming of a small orchard in our front garden in east kent.

[@Crina-LudmilaCristeaAuthor]

Thank you for this! Great video! Can't wait to read the book!🤗🤗🤗

[@hugelpook]

Not ramorial. Its ramial.