Free Advice and Information on Fruit Trees

When crumb structure breaks down, as it does on the whole more quickly on sandy soils than on clay soils, there’s a build-up of carbon dioxide in the soil, (a) because it cannot get away, and (b) the air cannot penetrate.

It cannot be produced in a year or so, neither can it be quickly replaced when once it has been destroyed. The really shallow soil must however always be treated with suspicion by fruit growers, and one which is less than 12 inches deep should be left alone. If, however, the rock below the 12 inches is soft, then the roots may even penetrate through this. It is important therefore to dig down and see what the depth of the soil really is.

Actually much can be done to protect soft fruits from frost damage at blossoming time, if they are covered, at the beginning of frosty nights, with sheets of newspaper or pieces of sacking. Such a covering, which is interposed between the fruit plant or bush and the sky above, definitely reduces the losses by soil radiation, and so gives protection to the blossom.

We must therefore start by choosing the higher part of the garden if this is possible; we must reduce frost liability if possible by allowing the frozen air to escape, and, when air drainage is not possible, some covering must be given to the fruit we wish to protect.

Soil which has taken a thousand years or more to be produced can easily be destroyed through erosion in a matter of ten years or so. In fact, man is destroying soil throughout the world at a much greater speed than it can be replaced, and this is extremely alarming. Many is the farmer who ruins land by the wheels of a heavy tractor, for the subsoil is compressed and the plough it pulls polishes the soil at the furrow depth. Those who have eyes to see can notice wheel marks across a crop in the summer, just because carting was carried out two winters previously when the soil was wet. The compression done all that time ago remains to be seen years later.

The advantage of this system is that you don’t get any ‘galvanized’ drip on to the bushes in the winter time. Furthermore, fish netting is far less expensive than fine wire netting.