Train an apple stepover

Stepovers are a clever and beautiful solution to squeezing fruit trees into the smallest of spaces. They’re essentially a very low, horizontal cordon that can be used to mark the edge of a potager (see pages 90-93) and are small enough, at about H45cm (18in) that they can be stepped over. You can buy them ready trained but a more budget-friendly option is to train your own from a young ‘maiden whip’ (a flexible single-stemmed one-year-old sapling tree). Choose a spur-fruiting apple (not a tip bearer, or you’ll be forever pruning off the fruit) and a dwarf rootstock: M27 would need a planting distance of 1.2-1.5m (4-5ft) and M26 a spacing of 1.8-2.4m (6-8ft) apart. First erect a system of low, sturdy posts with a single wire running at 45cm (18in) high. Or, tie in hazel rods or bamboo canes between the posts. During the course of a growing season, either gradually bend the young whip over to form a single horizontal arm, or train it to have two arms, one growing in each direction horizontally as a T shape. To achieve this, be brave and prune the dormant whip to just below the height of your support wire. As new shoots appear, train one in each direction to form the T, keeping a single shoot in reserve in case either should fail or end up damaged. Once these two arms are in place, summer-prune any lateral stems to the required frame of branches.