In the Garden: Fruits of my Labour

Is that a sigh of relief I hear? Fear not normal service has resumed today - The sad old bag has reverted to her former guise as mad old bag.

Above is some of this year's harvest - it seems a bit meagre doesn't it? Well in all truth it hasn't been a great year for me at all as far as fruit production goes. Things that held their own and seemed to thrive despite the weather were the Strawberries, especially the earlies and the perpetuals. The mid/late season types came up a bit light. The Gooseberries, and all the currants did very well. The Blackberries looked promising and then rapidly turned to botrytis ridden lumps as the rains closed in again. Autumn raspberries have been fabulous and I am still picking.

I had mix fortunes with the apples; Cox's Orange Pippin produce one hen-pecked apple over 3 trees; The Bramley nothing, and another cooker just 5 apples. What you see in the box is the product of a Reine de Reinette cordon, a pippin and close relative of the Cox. The Pears were equally disparate.

The William's Bon Cheritien produced 1 pear, that's right 1 pear. Last year we had so many of them I was turning them into a Brandy Liqueur , poaching them and using them instead of apples to make cakes. We had them coming out of our ears. It was a rather large pear I will give it its due, and if there was a largest pear competition, I am sure it would have been a contender. On the other hand, the cordon Conference did rather better, and you can see the result of my harvest from this tree in the other box.

Other notable failures that produced 1 fruit, was the Opal plum. This however was better than the damson, quince, mirabelle or any of the cherries managed, they dug in their heels and stuck firmly to zero output levels. I am convinced one of my hens is a former trade union steward and has persuaded the fruit that grows in their part of the garden to go on strike!

So how has your fruit harvest been, is it like mine a mixed bad of successes and failures, and what tips would you pass on to me and others about varieties that did better with the weather we had this year.

Comments

sandra nix 03 October 2012 at 14:06

You have done very well there. My Bramleys are dreadful for the first time for many years, all scabby which is due apparently to the rain. Agre about Autumn Raspberries, they are just the easiest fruit ever and abundant, jam making well under way here. I would like to grow more fruit but do not want huge trees, have you tried growing fruit in pots at all?

Zoe Lynch 03 October 2012 at 14:13

Ha! I completely forgot the nectarines ... I grow those in pots as they are the dwarf patio type. Very attractive in blossom, nice shaped plant and leaves too. The nectarines were more like large plums though this year, but still very tasty. I have tried blueberries in pots, but found they actually do better in the ground up at the allotment as we have fairly acid soil . They failed to produce anything this year.

You can get all sorts of fruit on dwarfing root stock - Blackmoor fruit near me http://www.blackmoor.co.uk/ have a great selection and so mail order too so worth a look on their website. They are very helpful with enquiries about which tree to chose for the site you have too, so email/tweet them with any questions you have.

VP 03 October 2012 at 16:09

Zero plums, pears, cherries and early blossoming apples.

Late blossoming apples have done quite well, but the fruit is quite small. There was a noticeable lack of bees around my trees for most of the early blossom time and yours may have been shivering in their hive ;)

Esther Montgomery 03 October 2012 at 16:33

Something is eating my apples. There are lumps out all over them. They aren't slug scrapes. Slugs tend to take a while over their meals so a bit of browning shows and the bits missing here are crisp and white. I wouldn't have thought they are birds - birds tend to jab. The bits seem to be broken off rather than gnawed so I don't think they can be mice. The fruits aren't ripe yet so I don't really want to pick them. But I think I shall have to - and cook them, for all that they are coxes, before there is nothing left or slugs crawl in to the broken spaces. Any idea what can be doing it?

Anna 04 October 2012 at 22:40

Only one of my two year old apples produced a reasonable crop, two one year old pear trees produced zilch, the majority of strawberries rotted on the plants, lots of summer raspberries but no taste to them. On the plus side white currant and black currant bushes were positively dripping with fruit. As with you autumn flowering raspberries ('Polka') are still going strong and are absolutely delicious. Thanks for the Blackmoor link - will have to explore :)

helen (@MereRambling) 07 October 2012 at 16:59

Earlier this year we had a massive gale one night, in the morning all the apple blossom had disappeared. We've had no apples at all. Love that you have conference pears, our neighbour gets them off his pear-apple on alternate years, they're lovely.
The alpine strawberries did nothing this year either.

Dudley Bimpkin (@grimclarity) 07 October 2012 at 22:55

I got damn all from my fruit trees this year, just a few under-sized plums. On most of the trees not a single fruit. Reckon the weather messed up the pollination.

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