[slowcompost]

cant wait i missed out on the bare rooted ones in lidle in the autum.does anybody know if they will have cooking apples!! dont you just love aldi

[paul5000]

The cold frame looks good 37 euro. Same one on ebay is 70 euro.

[Dr. Sunny Thomson]

Great news. Webpage with the offers here. http://www.aldi.ie/ie/html/offers/2827_12031.htm

[Macy]

They had a bramley's, slowcompost, if you didn't get there yet. Elstar was another one that I spotted.

They also have/ had garlic, strawberries, Asparagus, Rhubarb, and Onion and Shallot sets. None of them had named varieties from what I could see, but I took a punt on the strawberries and garlic - they weren't bad value imo for €3 for 8 plants/ 4 Cloves. The cloves were certainly bigger than the likes of heatons offer for a similar price.

[slowcompost]

ya thanks but i got there and snatched up 2 brambleys!!! any idea what rootstock they were though i dont know how far away to plant them.. i also got a bag of charlotte spuds and some seeds

[fontodi]

Thanks for the heads up Slowcompost. I got in this morning and got 2 plums and one apple, pear and cherry. I didnt like the look of the rhurbarb as most of them looked rotten and were supposed to have 2 plants in each pack. I'll be busy to-morrow.

[Macy]

[slowcompost]

thanks macy but what do they mean are my trees gunna be big??

[MacFistycuffs]

M26 grows to 10-12 feet, you should leave 9 feet between trees. Mm106 grows to 14-18 feet and you should leave 14 feet between trees.

[Sive]

Can I just introduce a different strand to all this aldi/lidl discussion ?
How about supporting your local garden centre instead ? Or Irish Seed Savers ?
Aldi/Lidl just sell you the things they can make most profit on ......whenever they feel like it.
Garden Centres have had a rotten three years because of our poor summers and if they close down we are all the poorer.
(And no, I am not involved in the trade...)

[AJ]

I agree with u Sive and I'm not in the trade either, but I must also say that I'm consistently guilty of supporting the big overseas companies here as opposed to my local garden centre's. Must concentrate on home support this year.

Getting back to the thread, last year I bought 4 apple trees, 2 plum trees and a pear tree in lidl or aldi, can't remember which one it was. Planted them and 2 fruited to my surprise. the cox's orange pippin produced about 6 very nice apples whilst the james greaves produce 12 or so fruits which were small and very bitter.

Can't wait to see what happens this year

[medieval knievel]

[Foxylock]

I think Medieval Knievel the phrase " you get what you pay for " applies here. It comes down to buying power the big stores have it the small garden centres don't. However try asking for planting tips the next time you buy something in aldi or lidl, or return something that didn't thrive once planted !!

[medieval knievel]

i once bought an echinacea in tesco - and there was nothing in the bag - i thought it was just sitting in the middle of the peat!

[James Kilkelly]

For very small sites (or container growing) chose an apple tree with M27 rootstock, this limits the growth to approx 1 metre in height with a similar spread in a bush-like shape.

Moving up in size is the M26 rootstock, which gives you a slightly larger tree at 2 metres by 2 metres.
Apple trees grown on these M27 and M26 rootstocks can be expected to produce a reasonable crop of fruit after 3 years.

The most commonly planted apple tree rootstock is the MM106, causing trees to grow to an eventual height and spread of 4 metres.
This is a great rootstock for medium sized and larger gardens, producing up to 50lbs of fruit when mature. It takes longer to begin producing fruit with a wait of 5 years common, but its well worth the wait.