Saturday saw an end to the lovely spell of early April weather as the sun disappeared for the day and the clouds returned. The cloud was thick enough to give a sprinkling of rain around teatime. What breeze there was had a distinctly chilly feel to it.
Last September one of our Peasgood Nonsuch apples fell off the tree and smashed it way into the greenhouse.
Now it’s entirely my own fault that this happens as it’s a silly place to allow an apple tree to grow. The problem is that this particular apple is a superb cooking apple.The apples are growing on a old cordon tree that used to be trained along a fence but has decided to become a tree. I'm greedy in allowing this tree to grow as large as possible on the grounds it will produce a bigger crop of apples. In the end it comes to an apple falling through the glass to prompt me into taking action. So last autumn the pruning saw came out and the apple tree was subject to a severe pruning. It’s not the only cordon survivor as next to it are a Bramley apple and Conference pear. Whilst the saw was out they all got the same treatment. I was pretty sure that pruning would put an end to any chance of fruit this year.
The Conference pear has proved me wrong and has produced a reasonable amount of blossom. It’s a little too early to tell whether the two apple trees will have any blossom or not but with a bit of luck we’ll have some tasty pears by the autumn that won't be in a position to fall off the tree and through the greenhouse roof and will also be easier to reach and harvest.
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What a shame about the greenhouse and the apple tree being too close together. It sounds like a nice variety, I love to hear about different types, and it's got such an excellent name. The weather here was amazing today - warm sun all day - and there were a few bees buzzing around my pears (Doyenne du Comice and Beurre Hardy) so I'm hopeful of a crop this year. I planted them to pollinate each other, but actually one is a little later than the other so it doesn't work perfectly. It's all Bob Flowerdew's fault.
ReplyDeleteBob Flowerdew has a lot to answer for. I think lots of fruit trees have wonderful names especially some of the old varieties of apples. There's a cider apple called Slack ma Girdle.
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