Hello and thank you for joining me this week, as I talk to Wade Muggleton, permaculturist, tree expert and author of The Orchard Book, a book about incorporating fruit trees into your garden, however big or small your space. Wade is my favourite type of guest in that he’s written a book based on 20 years of solid experience and he’s busted a few myths along the way, not least the received wisdom around fruit tree pollination. So if you’d like to find out what makes an orchard, when to prune your trees, what types of tree to select, how to underplant your trees, creative tree training, what is a pitcher and what is a chequer, then listen on!

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What we cover

What is an orchard? 

What types of tree might one contain?

Underplanting orchard trees

Keeping the costs down when establishing an orchard

Have you heard of chequers?

Grafting and over grafting

Pitchers

Pollination and the need for multiple trees of the same pollination group

Creating step overs and fruit tree arches

Pruning in summer instead of winter

Top types of tree

About Wade Muggleton

“Wade Muggleton lives in Shropshire with his partner and two children, where their plot, Station Road Permaculture Garden, is a demonstration site for permaculture and opens under the National Open Gardens Scheme. In 2013, he acquired a field and now has a collection of over 130 fruit trees and was featured on BBC Gardeners’ World in 2018.” https://www.chelseagreen.com/writer/wade-muggleton/

Links

The Orchard Book: Plan, Plant and Maintain Fruit from Garden to Field by Wade Muggleton - 2021, Permanent Publications