Crop: Worcester

Worcesters, about 3kg from young half-stantard M26.

Crop: Comice

A good quality crop of Comice, some nicely blushed from the (non-existant) sun. Moderate crop of 4kg. Box filled out with Glou Morceaux, probably about 2 kg worth (can't be bothered to measure small quantities on young trees).

Crop - Concorde

Decided to pick as much mid-season fruit as possible today, as there ex-tropical storm Katja is on the way for tomorrow, and I don't want the crop wasted as windfalls. Crop was a good 5.5 kg.

Also picked kg of Conference.

Windfalls

We had the first Autumn storm a few days ago, and with it a lot of windfalls, signalling that most of the remaining pears and some of the apples are ready for picking. I picked a box of Conference, most of the Glou Morceaux, Bishops Thumb, Beurré Hardy, also some Comice and Concorde. Elison's Orange and Egremont had started dropping, so picked all that parted easily, plus the Sunset's that had fallen. I had to pick all the Worcesters early too, as they started to drop.

Will have to give quite a bit away. I haven't tried to sell any more as the quality of both apples and pears simply isn't that good. The Worcesters taste metallic and rubbery, neither they nor the russets have that slightly honeyed quality you get with maximum sun ripening. I wondered about trying to leave them longer but there has been no sun in the interim since picking. So much for this being a good year for fruit. Certainly the extremely warm early conditions ensured a good set, but the quality is awful. Also the ripening period has been brought forward, meaning that mid-season cultivars are ripening along side earlier ones, with little succession.

Mulberries

This is the first year that our King James Mulberry has had a useable crop. Although it started to crop from about it's second year, the crop has been light. This year there has been a steady number of rip fruits from late July. Through early August there were enough fully ripe, black fruit to snack on whilst gardening; in the third week of August there were enough to fill a small desert bowl to have with cream. However, even when refridgerated they keep very poorly. I picked a bowl one day; they were forgotten that evening, but I decided to eat them the next afternoon. They tasted a bit mildew - when I looked the ones at the bottom of the bowl were completely mouldy, with very obvious white mycelium fibres already covering the fruit.

By the last weekend in August, black fruits picked straight from the tree were tasting a bit mouldy. Not 'winey' as some fruits go when overripe but mildewed, very strong mould. To be fair, the weather really hasn't helped, it's been very damp over the last few weeks and I've noticed blackberries shrivelling on the bushes too, the Devil has been spitting early this year.

Today, even some of the mid-red coloured fruit look a bit shrivelled so I decided to pick the remainder of the reachable crop and jam them, just over 1kg, enough for a small quantity of jam.

There aren't really any guidelines anywhere for how to use mulberries, but I think we will be better prepared next year. I have to say that using them is made more difficult by my husband refusing to eat them unless they are completely black, when they lose a lot of their acidity (my palate can take them just a tad 'redder'). They drop so easily at this stage, it's easy to lose most of them. But there is about a week in early- to mid- August when they can be eaten like other soft fruit. From that point on I think it's better to pick in stages, freeze, and then jam (or wine) at leisure. Mulberry jam rivals strawberry in the most delicious jam stakes (the fruits that don't break down are wonderfully chewy, like finding bits of fruit toffee in your jam), but is very hard to come by as so few people have mulberry trees, and they are tedious to pick. I wouldn't be without a mulberry now though, the taste of a really ripe fruit is on a hot summer day is indescribable, no other fruit matches it for intensity.

Post script

Husband made the jam (usual method of 1kg dry fruit to 1kg sugar), but for some reason decided to add pectin, as he wasn't sure how much mulberries have naturally. The answer is plenty; adding pectin made it far to thick. Personally I like my jam slightly runny or jelly-like in consistence, not completely solid (technically this would be fruit 'butter' anyway). Also I should have been a bit more careful in picking through them, as I let through the odd woody stalk that didn't break down on cooking. Live and learn, the flavour is good regardless.

Red comice

Just thought I'd add these photos as they looked so beautiful in the rain today. I think these should look stunning at the local hort. show next months. The espalier has fruited really well this year, fruit size is very good despite dry location and drought season.

Fondante d'Automne

Fruit actually going yellow on tree, will have to start picking crop. Annoying, with so many Morettini still to get through. I don't want to have to sell the whole crop so that it isn't wasted. Crop is a whole month earlier than last year. 2.5 kg picked Aug 17, 2.5 Aug 25, 5 kilos total.

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.