Eat your own fruit when playing golf March 09

[Dave]

Eat your own fruit when playing golf

By Clodagh and Dick Handscombe productive gardeners, authors and broadcasters gardening in Spain for over twenty years. Their books include ‘Growing Healthy Fruit in Spain –From strawberries to oranges and water melons’.

Spain is a fantastic place to grow your own fruit and there is no better snack in the middle of a tough round of golf. The climate allows one to consider growing a wide range of fruit and it is possible by careful selection to harvest one or more fruits on every day of the year – even from apartment terraces.

Indeed some of the easiest fruits to grow can be grown in various types of containers. For instance strawberries in a strawberry barrel or window box, a grape vine in a tub trailing along a balustrade or supported on an end wall and a perpetual flowering/fruiting Lunar lemon and early season white fleshed peach tree in large pots. With the latter  not only do you get the benefit of picking perfectly ripe tasty juicy peaches for immediate eating but also the early blossom.

Our tree in a tub started to flower in the middle of January while the almond blossom in the garden below was still out and the blossom has survived the recent gales. With a garden one can obviously expand  and plant fruit trees in containers on terraces, trained on walls or as spring flowering/summer or autumn fruiting trees anywhere in the flower beds. Naturally if you have a large property one can develop a dedicated orchard.

So much is possible but there are a number of important success factors each covered in detail in our book.

Firstly do plant fruits that you like.

Over seventy are described in the book including tropical/subtropical fruits for the frost free coastal plain and temperate types that need inland frosts to fruit well. The former include citrus fruits, mangoes and avocados and the latter cherry and pear trees.

Secondly chose strong plants and if oranges or mandarins check out when they will be ready to harvest. In both cases there are early , mid season and late season varieties to chose from – some ripening in October and others as late as early June. We list some of the most popular varieties in the book.

Thirdly prepare the ground and planting holes in advance and ensure that the young root ball is spread out when planting. If not strangled roots can develop that result in stunted poorly fruiting trees.

Fourthly spray with ecological insecticides and fungicides to ensure that there are no residual chemicals on or in the skins and also that the garden is save even when spraying for the family, pets and wildlife. Luckily such products can be made up at home or purchased from gardening shops and agricultural cooperatives. Look out for the Seipasa and Trabe brands.

Sorry space has run out to say more but the book is there to tell you all you need to know. You will find ‘Growing Healthy Fruit in Spain’ in high street and internet book shops and it can also be obtained from www.santanabooks.com or 952-48-58-38 from 10.15 until 14.00 daily.© Clodagh and Dick Handscombe February 2009.

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