Pests and Diseases of Fruit Trees and Shrubs: Rare and Heritage Fruit Growing #8

Growing fruit in your own backyard or home orchard is a real pleasure. The benefits are enormous. You can have access to in-season fruit picked fresh from the tree or shrub, with zero transport miles, rare and unusual varieties with a greater nutritional variety, and delicious fruit flavors all year round. Furthermore, your health will benefit if you get out into the fresh air and sunshine of the garden. Pests and diseases will inevitably appear at some point in the gardening year, but they need not spoil the enjoyment of growing your own food. There are many useful and chemical-free ways of managing them - including encouraging birds and ladybugs to come and eat the insect pests! We hope you will enjoy using this book to make your fruit-full garden thrive, and your harvest increase. During the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries fruit diversity was huge, but in modern supermarkets only a limited range of commercial fruit varieties is now available to consumers. Heritage, heirloom and rare fruit enthusiasts across the world are currently reviving our horticultural legacy by renovating old orchards and identifying ‘lost’, unusual and historic fruit varieties. The goal is to make a much wider range of fruit trees available again to the home gardener. This series of handbooks aims to help.