Mea Culpa - pheromone traps

I meant to post quite a while back that I'd decided to try moth pheromone traps for the first time as a couple of apples and one plum are very badly affected by the relevant species. I bought some from a common-or-garden centre in Bicester, and managed to get them both in place by mid may. 4 codling moths appeared in the trap around the last couple of days of the month, and I notice the first plum marauder turn up about a week later. All dark, dull, undistinguished moths  about 5mm long. My aim was to spray the trees soon after to catch the tiny caterpillars just before they started to burrow their way into the fruitlets, but the weather was so bad that it was just impossible. Yesterday I found a nice, plump fruitlet with a pin-sized hole, and cut it open to reveal a surprisingly large grub around 4-5mm long, so it's now completely pointless attempting to spray the affected apples; I will try to spray plum tomorrow, deluges-permitting.


The moth 'reservoir' Grenadier tree in the new plot of land has been thinned by one third for the third year in a row, so that hopefully there will be fewer infected windfalls to dispose of or infect the neighbouring garden, as well as the hope of better quality fruit overall. 

Grenadier

The 2 boxes of Grenadier windfalls are coming to the end of their useful life. At this stage, they are quite palatable for desert use, flavour is full and fruity, though the texture is a bit crumbly. A shame that we inherited a tree that comes at just the wrong time for us.

Eve's Pudding

As we've ended up with an old cooking apple on our new patch of land, I'm having to find new ways of using the crop up other than the default 'crumble'.

Eve's pudding isn't hugely different, the crumble portion of the dish is replaced by sponge.

This is my own adaption of the plain recipe.

Filling

5 or 6 medium apples (cookers or eaters to taste)

Muscovado sugar to sweeten

Quince Jelly

Topping

100g self-raising flour

100g golden caster sugar

100g butter

2-3 tablespoons cinnamon

2 eggs, beaten

Fan oven pre-heated to 180°C

1. Peel, core and quarter the apples, cook in microwave until softened. Drain excess fluid from the fruit. Place in large glass pudding basin and put to one side. The apples should fill about half of the dish.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar into a paste. Add the beaten eggs gradually, whisking gently into butter/sugar mixture. Add a little of the flour to avoid 'curdling' at first. Add the cinnamon to the flour, and sieve into the rest of the mixture, mixing it in gradually until you have a stiff paste.

3. Depending on how sweet or sour the apples are, add between 1-3 tablespoons of muscovado sugar to taste, and then another couple of tablespoons of Quince jelly, spreading over the apples. Spread the sponge mixture over the top and shape it so it covers the apple evenly.

4. Place in the oven, cook at 180°C for 15 minutes then turn the heat down to 150°C (to help stop the top burning) and cook for a further15 minutes. Remove from oven and test with knife, as you would a sponge to see if the mixture sticks to the metal.

This is the difficult bit as, unlike a sponge cake, there is a variable amount of moisture in the apples that makes the sponge layer rather gooey. The aim is to get the top crisp, the middle spongey and the bottom still slightly gooey (a glass basin will let you see what's going on). If the mixture still seems very wet just underneath the surface put back for another 15 minutes. The top can be covered with foil to stop the top burning.

This might seem like a fiddle, but it is worth the effort as the contrast between the crisp top and soft centre is wonderful. The jam/sugar mixture should have formed a thick caramel around the apple.

We used our Grenadier apples, which by this stage are actually a good sharp desert which keep their shape when cooked, ideal for this recipe.

Once the knack of getting the sponge right is mastered, I think this is a really good basic recipe that can be varied to suit other fruits.

Poison fruit - Grenadier

One of my lovely pullets, poisoned by rotten fruit.

We have inherited a large standard cooker in the new garden, almost certainly Grenadier. I've sometimes thought what a pity the fruit was always left to rot on the ground by our late elderly neighbour. We tried baking a couple of them but they were absolutely vile; even smothered in sugar, they tasted of neat vinegar. Even the wasps have barely touched the windfalls.

I'd been letting my small flock of new silkies range around the area. So many 'experts' exhort gardeners to let poultry free range under fruit trees, to clear pests and help clear up the windfalls, which were quite sparse to begin with but then started to drop in great numbers a fortnight ago. One morning I found one of my black pullets paralysed in the house. She was unable to walk, but had drooping wings. I brought her in, rehydrated her after which she brightened up but then started producing bright turquoise droppings (previous experience tells me this indicates poisoning). She be came increasingly more paralysed, head down and wings drooped, and died a couple of days later. I suspected botulism, but a one off instance wasn't enough evidence to be sure. A couple of days later her sister developed the same symptoms and declined very rapidly, and died within 12 hours of showing the first symptoms, which were classic ones of botulism poisoning. 

Examination of the ground under the Grenadier revealed many completely black, rotten fruits embedded in the ground, and quite a few that had turned completely brown. In poultry the usual source of botulism poisoning is rotting vegetable material, (birds are susceptible to a different form of the disease to that that affects humans).

So please don't let poultry free range among windfalls, rotting fruit is not a good food source for them and can be deadly. Pick up all rotting fruit and either burn or put in the re-cycling bags, most of the early windfalls will be infected with codling and be half-rotten inside before they even touch the ground.