Fruit in the Home Garden

Spring

Blossoms of Plums, Peach and Nectarine trees will be over in early September with early foliage appearing. Now is the time to watch for aphids to arrive. In numbers they can be extremely damaging, especially where young trees are involved. The use of Mavrik is usually highly successful and the same insecticide can be used if an infestation of ‘Pear Slug’ occurs during the warmer months.

Apply a high quality fertiliser such as Giganic around all fruit trees and remove all weeds and grass that can reduce the effects of the provided nutrients.

Suggested fruit varieties for this area:

Plums: Satsuma, Mariposa (these two should be planted together as they cross pollinate to produce heavier crops). Santa Rosa is self fertile but improves if Mariposa is used as a pollinator. Frontier is another good variety.

Apricots: The old Moorpark is still a widely grown favourite, plus Trevatt, Hunter & Earlicot.

Nectarines: Goldmine, Arctic Rose and Anzac are all white fleshed and freestone. Flavortop is an excellent yellow fleshed freestone variety for eating, cooking, drying or bottling.

Peaches: Anzac is early maturing and freestone. Redhaven and Golden Queen are well proven favourites with the late season Golden Queen excellent for bottling.

Growing Citrus

Citrus varieties grow well in the Warragul & Drouin area. In fact they are probably the easiest and most rewarding of all fruit to grow.

Recomended Varieties:
Lemons: Lisbon, Eureka and Meyer
Oranges: Washington Navel, Valencia
Mandarins: Emperor, Imperial, Afourer (also known as Murcott)
Limes: Tahitian, Kaffir, Australian Limes.
Grapefruit: Marsh, Ruby.
Cumquats: Marumi, Ngami, Variegated

NOTE: Double grafted trees with two varieties can save space as can those grafted onto dwarf rootstock.