Plum ans Pear Tree - HELP!

A few questions!

1. Pear Tree
I moved into my new house a year ago this week and all the trees at the rear were strangled in some sort of vine weed (I now believe this to be Japanese knotwood.) I ripped it all off to clear the rubbish left underneath and this year the one tree turns out to be a pear tree.

It must be 20 foot tall, its HUGE and bears more peas thn I could eat but its difficult tto get to the fruit. Anyway, it turns out the trunk of this tree is not even in my garden even though the friut falls in mine.

How d I know when the frit is ready and keep pests and birds away?
Is it possible to get a clipping from this tree and grow my own?

2. Plum Tree
The other tree it turns out is a plum tree. I only know this because I have just noticed a single solitary plum on it. This one IS in my garden and is about 7 or 8 feet tall. There wsn't any fruit on it last year but it was covered in vineweed and i don't know how old it is.
What can I do to make this tree bear fruit bearing in mind its probably not been bothered with in a very long time?
Again how do I keep birds and pests away without using pesticides?


I have never had a garden before and never entertained the thought of growing anything but it seems such a waste not to use whats there.

 

Good evening and welcome to the site.:gnthb: you would be better off going to your local garden centre and buying a pear tree rather than trying to root cuttings from your neighbours tree. As for the plum, any chance of a picture of it? And, more importantly, the " vineweed " you are talking about.

 

Yeah sure. I'll go out and take a picture today.
The soil could be in very bad condition because when I moved in there was aprox 21 ton of rubbish dumped at that end of the garden, that I am still working on getting rid of, so the whole area might need a lot of work but i'll go out in a little bit and take the pictures.

 

Ok, so this is the Vine weed that was strangling everything. Its working its way back round the garden again and fast.

 

This is the Plum tree. Its not a great picture. If this is no good I'll try to take a better one later in the day when the sun isn't behind it.

 

The first image is of BINDWEED, luckily for you NOT Japanese Knotweed. Keep ripping it off the shrubs. If you can get it alone spray with Glyphosate. We could do with a better image of the " plum ", though I am more inclined to think it`s a Sloe, ( Prunus Spinosa ).:gnthb:

 

Thanks Dai, Thats a relief.

I'm posting another picture of the plum, see if this is any good? If you take a look t the first one you can see my poor lonely plum.

What can I do to prepare it for a beter year next year?

 

Any one?

 

The plum looks like a Damson (Prunus domestica subsp. insititia) to me, unlike sloe's they are much, much sweeter and can be used just like plums although a photo of the fruit would be more useful for a positive ID

--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damson

 

Cool, Ill get the ladder later and get a closer picture of the fruit.

Also my boyfriend was picking and eating the pears yesterday. My sister said they were the best pears she has ever tasted. I'll get pictures of them too. Will they be ok to eat straigt from the tree, if washed or are there pests we should be watching out for?

I think a lot of them are over ripe now, loads of pears are falling down from the tree into the garden but he's picking the big ones that come easily off the tree.

 

They should be fine off of the tree =] I wouldn't of thought there would be any specific things to watch out for although just check to make the fruit is whole without any holes xD