February
In The Fruit Garden This February
Prune raspberry canes. It’s your last chance to cut autumn-fruiting raspberry canes to the ground to stimluate new canes to fruit in the autumn. Cut the tips of summer-fruiting rasberry canes that have grown beyond the top of their supports, cut just above a bud.
Winter prune apple trees and pear trees while they’re still dormant. This is your last chance to do so.
Leave plum trees, cherry trees and apricots until the summer as pruning these fruit trees now will make them suscepitable to Silver Leaf disease.
Prune blackcurrant bushes, gooseberries and redcurrants to maintain a productive framework.
Protect blossoms on apricots, nectarines and peaches from frost, but make sure pollinating insects can still reach the flowers.
Top dress fruit bushes with a slow-release, potassium-rich fertiliser to feed plants for the forthcoming season.
Force rhubarb plants for an early crop.
Cover outdoor strawberries with cloches to encourgae an earlier crop.
Top Tip:
Mulch fruit trees with well-rotted manure or garden compost, taking care not to mound mulch up around the trunk.
This Month's Key Tips
- Prepare vegetable seed beds and sow some vegetables under cover.
- Net fruit and vegetable crops to keep birds away.
- Prune winter-flowering shrubs if they have finshed flowering.
- Prune wisteria and hardy evergreen hedges.
- Cut back deciduous grasses left uncut over winter.
