...I spent a Christmas garden voucher and a bit more at a local garden centre that gives 10% reduction for allotment association card holders. I had no idea choosing apple trees would be so complex. I had to consider if I wanted eater or cooker, what size I wanted it to grow to and if there was no self-fertilising tree to fit these criteria I would need two or more that had to be within one point of each other in pollination group category. I came away with a Blenheim Orange, culinary apple, pollination group 3, rootstock M26 and a with promised final height of 6 feet and width of 8 feet and a Herefordshire Russet, pollination group 3, desert or culinary apple, rootstock M9 that will grow to 5 feet height and width. So I have planted them 8 feet apart in the middle of my plot in between the fruit bushes and flowers. I remembered on my way from garden centre to allotment that I would need stakes and hoped to find something suitable. I used the timber that had, until it collapsed, formed the support for a simple bench, which I used to sit on in my shed in Derbyshire and which previously to that came from my installation 'headspace' in 2002.
