HOME & GARDEN: Small and Fruitful Gardening

The best time of year to plant a fruit tree is nearly over. As usual we have left things to the last minute and have dashed online to buy a quince tree, which has just arrived. It needed to go into the soil as soon as possible, but we're currently changing the layout of our garden, so we've decided to plant it in a container until we can work out where we might put it. We're not too badly off for space, fortunately – but planting in container is a great way of growing a tree in a small space and all that gorgeous spring blossom and a lovely harvest in the late summer or autumn makes it very worthwhile.

We chose a quince tree because it looks lovely when it's in blossom, and the fruit makes lots of delicious things. We love membrillo (a quince paste which is delicious with cheese), quince jelly (fabulous on toast or added to apple pies), quince liqueur and our favourite preserve recipe of all - Madhur Jaffrey's Quince and Lemon chutney. There's also the huge bonus of how wonderful they smell when they're sitting ripening in your fruit bowl. Delicious.

If you want to grow a tree in a container or in any small space, you have lots of options available – you can buy a tree that won't mind being pruned to keep it reasonably small (like ours), or there's dwarf trees, minarettes (which grow in tall columns and can be planted quite close together), step-over trees (which are trained to grow in horizontal branches about 30cm from the ground), or you can train trees to grow on a wall or fence (espalier). If you can grow on a south facing wall or fence that's even better because your fruit will get maximum heat and light to ripen. These dwarf and trained varieties also have a huge advantage of not being too difficult to prune or harvest – you might not even need to totter on a ladder to reach the fruit!

A 4-5 foot young tree will need a pot that's at least 18-24 inches in depth and width. If you choose on the smaller side, then your tree will be encouraged into fruiting a bit sooner, but you might need to re-pot after a couple of years. We've chosen a light plastic pot because we know we are going to need to move our tree around - but a frost-resistant terracotta pot would be lovely if you are going to leave your tree in one position all year round.

You need to make sure there are drainage holes in the bottom of your container, and put some broken up pots in the bottom to increase the drainage. A soil-based compost, like John Innes No. 3 (we used around 40 litres) is best for trees and because a pot grown tree needs regular watering and feeding it makes sense to add some water retaining granules and some slow-release general fertilizer. You'll also need to a 2-3" diameter wooden stake which needs to be buried 18" into your soil, and a soft tie (you can buy special ones for trees), to fasten the tree trunk to the stake. To reduce water loss from the soil, we've planted up the top of our container with some strawberry plants, but any shallow-rooting plant would do - we're just greedy!

The great thing about our quince tree is that it's self-fertile, which means it doesn't need the presence of another quince to make sure it's pollinated. If you don't want to plant more than one of anything, check to make sure that your choices are self-fertile.

You'll find more loads more information about planting fruit trees at sites around the web - I particularly like Blackmoor Nursery and Ken Muir for loads of choice and good information. Other options for self-fertile fruit trees are Queen Cox apples, Conference pears, Czar plums & Morello cherries, but there are tons more, so there's no excuse not to get growing & harvesting!