The last days of summer

Growth has not been a problem but John Stoa is crossing his fingers and hoping for some sun to deliver the sweetness

S ummer has just about gone, or maybe we are still waiting for it to arrive, once that rain goes off.

However, it has been warm enough so all plant growth has been luxuriant, but we need sunshine to build up sweetness in our autumn fruits before we pick them. The pollination of most fruits was really good – as we came through a mild winter to be followed by a brilliant spring – so there were plenty of bees around to assist pollen transfer and no late frosts so fruit potential was good.

Only my new peach tree, Avalon Pride, let me down.

Flowers were very late for a peach, but that should have been beneficial as there were plenty pollinators flying around; maybe, with so many flowers to choose from, my peach blossom did not impress them.

Even though I did my daily hand pollination, I still only got one peach – but as it was a cracker, this tree may yet prove to be a winner.

Apples of every kind were a mass of flowers in spring, then branches got laden down with young fruitlets. There was a wee bit of thinning in July, at the natural June drop, but after settling down, all trees were still packed with fruit so I did a massive hand thinning at the end of July.

Trees are still heavy with apples, now a decent size. The Oslin (also known as the Arbroath Pippin) was ready in August but suffered badly in the wet summer so brown rot took out a lot of apples.

Discovery, my next early variety to ripen up by early September, gave a great crop of bright red apples with excellent flavour, but lack of sunshine held back sweetness.

Red Devil, Fiesta and Red Falstaff will hang on the tree a fair bit longer, hoping that at some point a period of prolonged sunshine will fall upon us and provide us with a sweet crop of apples.

Our pears grew somewhat sporadically, as my tree (Comice and Conference) had also been grafted with the Christie and Beurre Hardy.

It seems either they take a fair time to settle down or there could be a compatibility issue, as some branches have good pears and others are totally barren.

Unfortunately, over time the labels have been weathered beyond recognition so I do not know which is the culprit.

However, to help matters along I Clockwise from main: Discovery apples; Avalon Pride peach; John spraying the weeds; Oslin apples; pears ripening; plum Victoria.

Discovery, my next early variety to ripen up by early September, gave a great crop of bright red apples with excellent flavour

Pictures: John Stoa.