I’m interested in …

What sort of harvest this year?

The trees were covered in blossom as usual but the hard winter is great for trees as it kills the bugs and nasties that can inflict a harvest.  It also seems that someone nearby is keeping domestic bees based on the number I’m seeing on the flowers in the garden.  This seems to have really [...]

New apple tree in the garden

We removed a very unproductive and modest cherry tree from the garden and in its place (although not directly on top of it to avoid transplant disease we planted a Worcester Pearmain.  I like the note about it not being in the first rank of desert apples but we’re mainly growing for an addition to [...]

Straightening up an apple tree

It’s really important to renew your orchard particularly if you have inherited an old set of trees.  Although apples can be productive for a very long time as they age they succomb to disease and lose the odd limb until they can end up looking very sorry for themselves.  One of our very old cox [...]

A couple of new additions to the orchard

It’s not a bad time to plant trees right now; were it not for the foul cold weather we are having.  Dormant trees can be put in place and prepared for the spring.  Of course you need to be able to dig into the ground to get them in in the first place so you’ll [...]

Mistletoe in the apple trees

One of our older cox variety of apple trees is slowly being dwarfed by the most fantastic mistletoe plant.  Each year it produces masses of gorgeous berries and this year was no exception. Our neighbours who also have a number of old apple trees have a couple of trees that are more mistletoe than apple.  [...]

A wet warm spring – my weather hopes for the year

So far in Sussex January has proved to be very wet and very windy.  The windy I can live without but it would be great if we got a warm wet spring this year.  So far the prediction is that Spring will be slightly warmer and slightly wetter (long term forecast).  Apple trees (and most [...]

Apple days up and down the country

There’s a couple of apple events taking place this weekend that may be worth a visit.  At Waterperry Gardens, near Oxford, there are tours of the orchard, apple juice sampling and apple themed meals in the restaurant.  More information available at their site.

And on 12 October it is Apple and Cider Sunday at the [...]