Santa Claus

I've been assuming the damage on my Santa Claus was due to scab, as (unlike what is says in the catalogues) I find the leaves and shoots very susceptible. This only happens to the ones in my back garden, the front tree (part of an arch) never has this problem on the fruit even though the rest of the tree is scabby. I think I'll pick them soon, they are still very hard at this stage and take a time to ripen but I don't want leave them too long and find they rot from the core (cropping has been light so far so I haven't had much practice with them).

Apple cordons

I think I'm close to admitting defeat on some of my apple cordons. All of my pear cordons are easy to prune and more or less prolific, but some of my apples are really a waste of space. I was advised that M26 is the best rootstock for apples, but I think it is far to vigorous, M27 is a much better stock for supported forms. M26 is a pretty useless stock all round, as it's far to weak and spindly to use as a half-standard form, it needs permanent staking and the branches simply can't support and weight of fruit and are prone to breaking.

Some varieties of apple are fine on cordons, ones that spur freely with compact growth (Sunset is the best in this respect). Most apples are too vigorous and the pruning required to keep a trained form manageable just encourages yet more top growth. With the exception of just a few, most apples fare best with only light pruning to shape.

The more vigorous of my M26 cordons make shoots growth in excess of 3 feet which is just a bit too thick to prune with secateurs; using a lopper results in ugly wounds, and personally I dislike having to resort to a pruning saw. It's a sign that something isn't working.

I will give them one last chance and ringbark the worst offenders next Spring, but I will also graft up some M27 versions of these trees and either make a new cordon, or grow them as bushes now that I have some more space (or both). If ring-barking doesn't work, I think I'll take them out and plant pears in their place.

Golden Russet

This is the first time since this cordon was planted, about 12 year ago, that his variety has produced fruit. It has very sparse growth, with few spurs, and this branch has only come into cropping because it has been bent down in a W rather than a V -shaped cordon. I'm looking forward to trying it as I could do with a late Season russet, as I don't find the Rosemary russets keep their flavour well past Christmas. Looks like roughly a kilo ofunblemished fruit. But as a cordon, it is a disaster, as it it's neighbour Egremont Russet. Both far to vigourous and shy to spur.

Summer pruning!

Made a start on so-called summer pruning, starting with Winter Nellis. I like to prune extension growth away at this time of year as it lets more sunlight in and means fewer leaves end up falling around the trees. Summer pruning should never be done until terminal buds have formed, signalling extension growth is finished for the year, so can be pruned back to the fruiting spurs, apart from long growth required for training in or as graft wood next year. The prunings will go straight on the bonfire.

Sunset - review

The real 'star' of this season has been our crop of Sunset, which have ripened superbly well. I'm really impressed by the quality of the fruit, crisp, sweet and aromatic. They seem to have coloured rather more than in previous years, perhaps this explains the lovely flavour. It's sometimes described as a Cox 'substitute' as it is very easy to grow and prolific. This isn't really fair as it's a different kind of apple, juicier and sweeter, but equally good and very heavy cropping. I'll be sad when they are over.

I don't know why I haven't recorded the crop weight of Sunset before, it always produced well, I'd estimate between 3 and 5 kgs

Red Comice - review

I think I've been a bit disparaging about Red Comice as a desert pear in the past, so I'm prepared to eat my words. They are superb, the skins are thin and without bitterness, the flesh is like a normal Comice, but rather richer. I think I should have picked them a tad earlier, as some are going a little floury and soft in the middle, but still superb.

Winter Nellis - crop

Excellent crop of 5 kg this year. Although classed as a very late pear, I find they start to ripen quite quickly when picked, unlike the other late pears which do keep well into the New Year.

Composting

I'm probably not the only person with a number of mouldy windfalls this time of year, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on what to do with them.

First, leaving them to rot on the ground isn't a terribly good idea. Although it's nice to leave the odd windfall for the birds, it's horrible having a hundredweight of rotting fruit lying around. Fruit can rot anaerobically and produce botulinum toxin which can be fatal for any poultry or birds that ingest it; it can be very slippery to walk over and will attract wasps. If the fruit is affected by pest or diseases, then leaving the spores or larvae lying around just means you will get more of the problem next year.

Ideally any fruit that is diseased should either be burned (not always possible and a potential nuisance to neighbours) or otherwise responsibly disposed of. I put mine in the food waste bins provided by the council. It's virtually the only time we ever use this service, as most other food waste goes to chickens or dogs. Council composting facilities are much better than those that can be achieved at home; they either use large, sealed containers which can be rotated to get even composting at high temperatures, or anaerobically digested to produce electricity.

I really don't like putting large amounts of fruit on my compost heap. Many is the time I've come across a layer of vinegary slime in the middle of otherwise peat-like compost, from a mixture of fruit that just hasn't rotted properly even when chopped up and mixed with straw / manure. If you are going to compost a quantity of windfall fruit, I'd suggest first putting it through a garden shredder, then mixing thin layers in between damp straw to stop it becoming slimey.

Crop: Sucrée de Montluçon

Just under 4 Kg from my super-productive little stepover this year. I left them on the tree as long as I could this year, and this is the first time they have ripened sufficiently (I usually end up using them under-ripe as cooking pears). Fully ripened they are slightly perfumed, soft, coarse and slightly granular but very sweet, nearer catalogue descriptions. Skins were quite tough and papery though. Ideally this variety needs a long season in addition to a warm location, and picking should be left as late as possible.

Crop: Glou Morceau

A tidy 3 kg of these this year, from quite a young cordon, in about 4 year now I think. In previous years I've mostly cooked them as they stay quite hard for so long, but will let these ripen to evaluate them properly this year. A small late mid-season pear with fine texture.