Fruit in the Home Garden

Autumn

Apply a high quality fertiliser such as Giganic around all fruit trees in March & September and remove all weeds and grass that can reduce the effects of the provided nutrients. The fertiliser should be applied around the drip line of the tree and preferably forked in to prevent attempted eating by both pets and wildlife. A thorough watering immediately after application together with Popul8 will improve the uptake of the nutrients

Now is the time to select new trees for the orchard garden with June and July being the best planting months.

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.