Our latest work trip has been put on hold due to the return of the cold weather. It’s set to be –5 to –9 at night for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully warming up again by April 1st. So we have been sorting out our tree and soft fruit orders so that we will be ready to plant as soon as the weather allows.

This is a table of the plants, cost and quantities. We are going for traditional Polish varieties which grow a bit bigger than the commercial types but hopefully will be a bit hardier, and I been assured a lot tastier! As long as they will make good cider I think I will be happy. I didn’t realise until we started looking into it that some trees need a different variety as a pollinator, a partner to cross pollinate with. We’re hoping to plant the trees by the end of April. We had some much needed advice from Eddy Winko, who has a very informative blog of his endeavours to build a straw bale house in the south of Poland, regarding when to plant. We are planning to use http://sklep.skarbyogrodu.pl . They have been very helpful and found all of the varieties that we are looking for. Prices are in Zloty; at the moment we are getting about 4.75zl per £.

fruittreestable

Fruit trees are a medium-term investment. We wont be eating their fruit or making cider and wine with them for a few years. Most of the advice we’ve had is to pick the flowers off of them in the first couple of years and then take the fruit in the 3rd year. Some people say wait until the 5th.