Crop: Bishop's Thumb

Had been picking an eating these without thinking, so I thought I'd weigh the last few and estimate the crop. We had at least a dozen on the half-grown arch in the front, so I think the crop was at least a Kg. I left some too long on the tree, which meant the odd one had gone brown from the core, but those that were just right had a magnificent 'fondante' quality, very sweet and soft. The flavour would have to be described as 'bittersweet', there is a hint of bitterness but it doesn't detract from the overall flavour. The texture is soft and rather coarse, the antithesis of a 'butter' pear but I find they make a nice contrast in a mixed pear platter.

Quince Jelly

Nearly all the windfall Quinces bubbling away in a large pan. Recipe to follow.

Crop - Vranja

A very heavy crop of Vranja. However, the quality was rather below par this year. As the set was very heavy, the average size was smaller than usual, but the northern side of the tree was very badly affected by brown spotting which I think must be pear scab (as the pears were also affected to a greater extent than usual). The black spots are mostly surface deep, but on a couple of fruits they do extend into the flesh with cracking of the exterior as in pear scab. I thing the peculiar season probably encouraged this (very high temperatures early on made for some very soft growth which couldn't withstand more humid conditions later on). However, I think I need to open up the centre of the tree to increase ventilation, as it has become horrible congested in the last couple of years.

Quince - Sobu

This is my second half-standard quince tree, Turkish variety Sobu. The reason I added another quince variety despite having a large, productive tree of Vranja is that I hoped it would be of a higher quality, for cooking and exhibition. Certainly for the latter, the fruits are large, smooth skinned and a regular shape. The only problem is that they don't ripen on the tree, but stay green until they drop. I think in future I will need to pick in early September and bring inside to ripen/yellow in time for Autumn shows. The other slightly annoying thing is the amount of 'bloom', impossible to pick without damaging. However, it does 'polish' off very easily.

One of the probles with some quinces is that they remain very woody next to the core, which can be quite a large proportion of the fruit, so the best quality ones have a small core relative to flesh which makes preparing them before cooking much easier.

I cut one open, and it was quite easy. The core is small in relation to the flesh area. However, this one had bruised internally without showing any sign externally.

The tree has only been in about 3-4 year, so cropping is very light, half a dozen fruits of varying sizes.

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.

Village Show - fruit categories

Crop: Coe's Golden Drop

My Coe's Golden Crop had a very good set this year, and looked to have a promising crop for once. But one by one, nearly every fruit has turned brown and either dropped or rotted on the tree. As the crop has been so small in previous years, I haven't really paid it the attention I should have, I probably assumed the rot was due to wasps nibbling the thin skin causing brown rot to set in. But this year I have religiously opened every spoiled fruit, and found every single one infested with plum moth. I'm slightly at a loss to know why the infestation is so severe; neither the wild plum nor the Denniston's is affected, and there aren't many plum trees in neighbouring gardens. I was left with about 7 unaffected plums from a 8 foot standard which had previously been over-loaded.

Not sure what to do, I'm not sure it's worth the bother of pheromone traps/spraying for one sparsely producing tree. The fruit is good, but not as outstandling a yellow plum as the catalogues suggests, and the few unaffected fruits ripen very unevenly, the area near the stalk shrivels whilst the other end is sometimes hard.

My husband's favourite plum is the Warwickshire Drooper that grow rather ferally in his parent's garden, as unusually this variety does very well on it's own roots. The flavour isn't as rich as Coe's, but large, sweet and juicy, skins are equal in terms of thickness/bitterness, but it very reliable, seemingly pretty immune to silverleaf and only mildly affected by moth. The drooping habit is attractive, and somewhat self-limiting re. height which is nice.

I know the poor soil here means that plums are very slow to come into production, maybe it's simply too poor for a fussy variety like Coe's. I'll give it one more chance.

Keepers Nursery Open Day

I wish I was nearer, I'd love to go to an open day at Mr Habibi's orchard, sadly Kent just too far for us. Although I now graft all my own fruit these days, I have bought from Keeper's Nursery in the past, maidens trees have been a nice size and always come true, unlike those bought from another well-known fruit supplier (Deacon's). On the rare occasions I've asked for follow up advice it has been very good.

Pear or Apple?

Russet pretending to be a pear.

Today's pickings

Total 4 boxes. Smaller quanitities (1-2kg) of Ellison's Orange, Sunset and Egremont. Very disappointing yields from apple cordons. I need to do something to reduce vigour, I might start with root pruning.