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Plenty of blossom, plenty of fruit but size of a marble!

rwilloxrwillox Posts: 4
in Fruit & veg
New to gardening, new to growing anything! Braeburn tree on a rootstock. Planted 3-4 years? 
Plenty of blossom in spring and pruned and thinned out fruit as suggested but don't think by enough. There still looks like too many very small fruit. Was the same last year and thought had thinned more than enough but...
How best to proceed now? Remove all existing fruit now and then prune in November or thereabouts?

 
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  • rwilloxrwillox Posts: 4
    Hi, thanks for the quick reply :smile:
    Thought there was still too much fruit so that's a target but didn't think enough about the water supply as it rains quite a lot up here and that area of garden tends not to get as much tlc, always appears to be quite 'wet' and is a bit wilder but again will see to that! 
    Cheers 

  • purplerallimpurplerallim Posts: 5,287
    Just a further thought, check by cutting an apple open to see if a grub has got in and killed the pips. This causes the fruit to stop growing.
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    I don't think that is a braeburn those fruit and they way they are distributed makes me think that is a flowering crab apple or the rootstock has taken over.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    It certainly looks like a crab to me. 
    A possible case of mis-labelling perhaps?
    Who was the supplier?

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • amancalledgeorgeamancalledgeorge Posts: 2,736
    Looks like a Lidl label to me...
    To Plant a Garden is to Believe in Tomorrow
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    My first thought was crab apple too. Can you get a clear picture of the base of the trunk where the graft is (if there is one)?
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    I think that a lot of the fruit trees sold cheaply at supermarkets, home care stores etc may have bee offloaded by the producers as ‘not being up to standard’ ... sometimes not well-grown, often with missing or wrong labelling. Sometimes it’s a bargain ... not always. We tend to get what we pay for. There’s a reason these outlets are selling them cheaper than the nurseries that produce them do. 🤔 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • rwilloxrwillox Posts: 4
    Thanks for all the observations and comments. Will take on board and rethink  :'(
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Whatever it is, it is a beautiful tree 😊 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    pansyface said:
    Yes, there is a graft. Not the nicest looking one I’ve ever seen and liable to infection, but it is there and the tree isn’t a sucker as it grows from above the join.


    I can't see the graft clearly in the pictures, but in that case, if it came from a reputable retailer it might be worth going back to them with the label and a sample of the fruit (or pictures). The worst they can do is nothing. In the worst case it's still a pretty ornamental tree, and the birds etc will eat the apples (or you can make jelly).

    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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