How to grow fruit

Home-grown fruit has a flavour that shop-bought produce almost never matches — picked at peak ripeness and eaten within hours, a strawberry or apple from your own garden is a genuinely different food. UK gardens are well-suited to soft fruit: strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries and blueberries all perform reliably in our climate and can be grown in containers as well as the ground. Tree fruit — apples, pears, plums and cherries — requires a little more planning around rootstock choice and pollination, but rewards you for decades. Our guides cover everything from choosing varieties and training forms (espalier, cordon, fan) to managing pests, understanding blossom timing and knowing when to pick.