Beurré Gris d'Hiver Nouveau

A similar spur on Gris d'Hiver - decided to leave these a little longer as they didn't want to part easily from the spur.

Crop: Beurré Hardy

A nice crop of 4 from a single spur of Beurré Hardy, still rock hard but ready for picking to ripen in store.

Rogue Red

Nowhere near ready yet, but this year they have developed a lovely red flush which explains their name !

Bishop's Thumb

Left these too long on the tree, they look wonderful but have dried up and turned a little spongy. This variety can be very juicy, and needs an abundance of sweet juice to offset it's astringency. There is a very tall full standard Bishop's Thumb near my printmaking studio, I sampled a couple of less ripe-looking windfalls last week which were much nicer, so I'm convinced they are the type that benefit from picking while still green and fairly hard.

Final Nemasys treatment

Final Nemasys treatment was applied last Monday, a couple of days over the suggested interval of 7 days, due to lack of time and terribly strong winds.

crop: fondante d'automne

These have started falling, which prompted me to pick and store them properly. Today's crop weighed 5 kg, in addition to 1 kg spoiled on ground and 1 kg sold at local shop, making yield just 7 kg or just under 15 lbs in total, rather more in total than last year. The fruit has not coloured as much as last year, looking back, which has been the case with the early pears (which had less flavour than usual). Small amount of superficial tortrix moth damage.

Nemasys - second treatment

Not very exciting, but just for my records I applied second treatment of Nemasys codling moth treatment this afternoon, six days after the first one. It rained this morning, so it was nice and damp for spraying but the sun came out later, I hope this doesn't mean the nematodes are spoiled by drying out.

Crop: Devoe

Having found them a little disappointing last year, I forgot to pick any of the few that the squirrels left this year. My husband brought me some for breakfast today, and they were much better, skins less hard and papery than last year probably because of the recent lack of sun. Note to self: pick around the same time as Beth (last week of August) as once they have started to yellow, the core will turn soft very rapidly.

Fig: Brown Turkey

I'd forgotten how nice home-grown figs are, much better than the flavourless imported ones. Pure honeyed nectar that melts in the mouth.

Crop: Bishop's thumb

Fig: Brown Turkey

My standard Brown Turkey eventually deigns to produce a single fruit!

Nematode treatment for Codling moth

The Nemasys nematodes turned up on Friday, and the weather was cool and dull enough to spray today. I was a bit worried that they would not be sufficient for all our various trees, but I needn't have worried as the cordons are very easy and efficient to spray. The sachets had to be dissolved in 10 litres of water, but my sprayer only takes 3 litres so I had to make up 1 litre of concentrate and then fill up in three sessions. I now realise just what a boon cordons are, much easier to access and spray. The M25 standard Grenadier was a nightmare, and took half the treatment volume alone, so we've resolved to remove it in stages as there's absolutely no point in maintaining a large producer of inedible fruit that rots and poisons my poor poultry.

The second treatment should be done 5-7 days from now, exactly when will depend on the weather conditions. Only time will tell if this is an effective treatment though.

Fruit supplier!

Basket of Gorham and Red James Grieve destined for our village shop. Gorham crop was quite light this year, only about 1.5 kg.