• July is often the busiest month of the year on allotments when many vegetables hould be at the picking  stage however it has also been the wettest july on record and this combine with lower than average sunshine has delayed the growth of many crops.

I have several apple trees on my allotment and this year there has been little if any flowers on them and in addition the leaf growth is rather poor . I think this is probably caused by a combination of factors including blight and I will be spraying the trees with a fungicidal spray in the next week.

 

Other ailments which can affect apple trees are as follows -

 

Fire Blight - the leaf dies back and withers/wilts but stays on the tree 

Wooly apple aphid - a decline in the vigour of the tree , with decay in the root areas which is caused by a fungus( Phtophthora )

Apple leafhopper- this causes white speckling on the apple tree leaves

Powdery Mildew  - this leaves  a white powdery deposit on the leaves

Apple aphid- these cause the leaves on the tree to roll up or become curled

Apple maggot - a maggot inside the fruit which tunnels out

Flower thrips damage - causes light spotting of the fruit

Bitter pit - this causes brown spots to develop on the skin and also into the flesh during storage

 Powdery mildew - causes dry brown patches on fruit - russeting

Where there are plenty of Flowers, but no fruit ,this indicates either bad pollination or late frost spoiling the flowers and preventing insects from pollinating. I think this is what has probably ruined my apple trees this year !

 

Where too many apples are allowed to grow the fruit produced can be too small in size.In this case the fruit should be thinned out early in the season to allow the best in every truss a better chance to grow into prize apples.

Fruit Dropping off tree in early summer .This is usually because there are too many apples for the tree to support, so it sheds a few!

I have 12 tomatoes of different varities currently growing in my allotment greenhouse in grow bags .This is the recommended method of growing tomatoes and i am hoping for  a bumper crop this year.

Feed with a soluble, high potash tomato fertilizer once a week at least. All garden centres or large DIY stores will sell quite a wide choice of these.

As the plant grows, side shoots will appear where the leaf stalk joins the centre stem. Cut or pinch these out when they are about 5cm(2") long .

As the season progresses remove yellowing leaves from the tomato plant. Some of the leaves may be removed from the growing plant just below the trusses of tomatoes as each truss ripens .

 One potential drawback with Growbags is getting the watering right. Too much and it will keep the roots sitting in the water affecting the plants development, too little and the compost dries out. The plant will soon wilt and re-wetting the compost will be difficult .When peat dries out it becomes 'waterproof', so when watering the top it may look wet but in its middle it may still be very dry. So the secret is that regular watering is required but not too much to water-log the roots.

J Greenfingers