Annoying!

Annoying to see the Google adverts for fruit pruning services in Oxford at the bottom of the page, you can ask me instead! Most of the people who call themselves tree surgeons are just blokes with chainsaws, and I'm sure they have no specialist knowledge of individual fruit varieties and their pruning peculiarities.

Denniston's superb...

... has finally lived up to it's name. Boughs of excellent quality fruit bending branches, but also attracting legions of wasps. Like Devoe, they had started to swell and crack following drought/heavy rainfall, allowing wasps easy access. Its actually quite dangerous harvesting with this level of wasp activity, we resorted to protecting hands and removing whole branches rather than picking individual fruits by hand. Another reason was that much of the fruit was on wood that had migrated northwards over the fence. Didn't measure the crop - a certain amount was wasp-spoiled and discarded, plus we ate an awful lot as we were picking. We've been eating about 8 a day for the last week, with half a tray still left.

I think the reason for the sudden increase in crop is due to not pruning extension growth at all last year (which did mean it had got rather out of control). The tree isn't trained as such, but vI don't think this variety likes being pruned at all. We removed two large uprights, nearly 6' long (which would have taken the overall height to way over 12 feet if left), from the centre of the tree and removed most of those overhanging the fence. Will try to 'festoon' new growth from lower on the trunk, and try to tie down extension growth of the main 'T' shape just to keep it tidy and accessible. This is about as late as I would ever want to prune a plum to avoid silverleaf.

Devoe

Dissapointingly small crop of Devoe, but the quality was better than in some years. Picked on August 5, as a couple had started to split after heavy rain attracting wasps. This was too early, as they shrivelled a little before softening. Skin texture better than in some years, thinner, less papery. Flavour very good, sweet, juicy and perfuned. Foliage very badly affected by scab, absolutely no extension grown on either cordon, but fruit completely unaffected.

Irish Peach

Picked and eaten straight from the tree today. Unlike early windfalls, just ripe. Skin okay, flavour sweet, acidity, very 'appley'. Crop 1.5kg this year. Crop 2-3 weeks earlier than 2010.

Beth/Morettini windfalls

Enormously surprised to find Beth crop starting to yellow and fall so early. This is still July for Heaven's sake! Ate the first one, not great quality, dry, little juice, none of the usual buttery quality, due to poor sun levels and leaving too long on tree. Picked all those with signs of yellow - 1.8 kg picked so far.

Decided to pick the whole crop a couple of days later, the additional crop was a further 2kg, meaning the total was a bare 4kg. Last year was a bit better 5kg, but way short of the 7 kg in 2009.

The Morettini were also starting to fall, creating a wasp hazard on the pavement outside, so I decided to pick any that were a decent size or flushed. These weighed in at 4kg. Flavour has been poor, due to lack of sun. Will be interesting to see of the ones left on the tree improve in the few days of sunshine.

Pear scab

A terrible year for pear scab, mostly affecting foliage. The usual suspects all succumbed, but to a worse degree, and others varieties suffered for the first time. Worst affected are Santa Claus and Devoe, but Fondante d'Automne and Beurré Gris d'Hiver Nouveau have also showing a lot of yellow/blackened foliage. I think the explanation lies in the very warm spring, which encouraged a lot of soft growth which has succumbed during the colder, more humid months of true summer. Only the fruits of Santa Claus are affected, and only in a particularly dank corner.

Codling control - the results

Slightly disappointing results for codling moth control. Picked several bored fruits off Pixy and Orlean's Reinette. I've come to the conclusion that the worst affected varieties are those where fruit is bourn in clusters that are very tight, sheltering the caterpillers sufficiently to bore into the fruitlets hidden from predators. I think the nematode treatment was worth doing, as I haven't found any on varieties other than these two yet. In future, I think I'll try spraying these varieties individually, using pheromone traps to identify when the adult moths are on the wing.

July horrors

This is turning out to be a very strange season. Fruiting times are very unpredictable - some varieties are ripening extra early, catching me unawares. St Edmund's Pippin is a whole month early, as I discovered when my cockerels ate all the fruit they could eat near the ground, plus the blackbirds had made some holes further up. I left Irish Peaches far too long on the tree, with the result that they were all pithy and flavourless when I tried them, with the inedible, leathery skin I'd expect in such a dry season. Meanwhile, my early pear Morrettini shows no sign of ripening yet. Most of the fruit appears undersized, pears in particular, and I suspect will have unpleasant skins. Meanwhile, we picked our earliest ever greengage yesterday, and the crop on both our standard plums is heaviest we have had to date.

Record earliness?

Small crop from Vista Bella (having a partial biennial year off), but having any sort of home-grown apple before the middle of July must be a record. Very nicely ripened, considering these were on the shady side. Nice balance of sweetness and acidity, slight 'strawberry' flavour, flesh and skin soft, with no trace of bitterness found in some summer reds.

Whinham's Industry

Not a lot to say other than I always look forward to my desert gooseberries, which come just after the currants and strawberries have finished, and fill the 'hungry gap'. I should grow more desert varieties, I'm sure there are bigger, juicier and even sweeter cultivars than Whinham's, but it's reliable and easy.