Friday 20 September 2013

Orchard fruits August-September 2013

Victoria Plum

Crawley Beauty

Early Windsor

Our fruit trees are very young and we did not expect much of a harvest. The Czar plum was laden with fruit one day towards the end of August and the next day the flimsy branches which had fruit had been torn and broken from the tree. A few tell-tale plums on the ground were all that remained. The Victoria plums were carefully picked by a group of volunteers while still yellow, to ripen indoors, to avoid the same fate though some branches had already been torn off. Apples had been pulled from trees before they were ripe and, because they were not yet edible, were thrown on the ground with human teeth marks visible!
One Crawley Beauty remained out of eight fruits and two Early Windsor out of six. The Jupiter apple tree had three apples - all removed. In a few years time, when the trees are set free from their protective fencing, people will be able to pick a fruit to eat as they walk past and hopefully not take everything.
Our next task is to prepare the trees for winter. Some will need a prune. Weeds on the the ground underneath will be removed and a deep layer of mulch will be put down on the ground.







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