-
:)
I don't think I'll ever grow salad though, nature taking care of that here means "did you know common garden snails are edible as your salad has been recycled into them? ;)
JWestland-
Pretty much all fruit trees thrive in clay. I had espaliered pears around half the perimeter of my old garden and they fruited in their third year, the harder you prune the more they will fruit. If possible, buy them as bare root 'whips' (single stems) as these establish quickest, this is the right time of year to do so. No great soil prep is needed, you can literally shove them in a slit in the ground, although a little organic matter will no doubt help. Ideally, buy on a dwarfing rootstock and plant with the graft a few inches above soil surface. Pears grow tall if not on a dwarfing rootstock and you probably don't want to prune and harvest from a high ladder!
-
After a 2 minute Google, Craigmore Trees in Co Armagh should be able to supply (if I remember rightly you're in NI). Bare root are a fraction of the garden centre ripoff prices and generally grown by people who know exactly what they are doing.
ColinTheBald
The manicured look comment made me smile, at 63 years old I've been pottering in gardens for a few decades. Including gardens that had chemical warfare unleashed upon it akin to the Americans using agent orange. !
I am happier now with just letting things grow where they spring up, stuff in the lawn that is green but certainly not grass, accepting that bugs will eat things, not having plants in rows and letting nature take care of things. Horticulturists in the family make it look nice among all the chaos :)