Greengage Fest

Summer returned on Tuesday as the wind finally dropped. There was more cloud than sunshine but the temperature managed a very warm 24.2°C.

We'd tested our greengages and decided that although they were still hard and green they were certainly ready for picking. I decided to harvest them today and decided that it would be worthwhile taking my step ladder down to the plot to harvest as many as I could reach. I have to be honest I didn't think there were that many to pick and we'd probably get a couple of punnets from each tree. I decided to do a little bit of tidying up first and even found time to go chasing this “Speckled Wood” butterfly around the plot.

I thought it must be rare as I hadn't seen one before but apparently it’s not. Eventually I got round to picking greengages.

They don’t really look ready for picking do they? It’s so difficult to believe just how sweet these firm green fruits are. I know from past experience that they can be left a little longer on the tree until the fruit develops a red tinge around its stalk. The trouble is at this stage the gages split acting as a magnet for every wasp within miles and the fruits and tree become infested making it not very pleasant to pick them. So the decision was made to pick them at this stage.

I was amazed at how many of these small fruits were on each of our trees as I kept on filling punnet after punnet. In the end I picked 9 punnets from each tree which when weighed up came to 9.9kg from “Mannings” and 9.5kg from “Reinne Claude”. There’s still a few gages left at the very top of the trees but I'm not risking life and limb to pick those. I’m more than happy with my 19.5kg and the wasps can help themselves to those that remain.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett