Fruit and flowers

No more about mulberries for now, let's just say that even more dropped after the last post,  we almost ran out of space and on Sunday we pressed most of the brews.  So far, we have  90 litres clearing with another 30 or so to do soon.

The pear tree in the front garden has started to drop its fruit, much to the delight of Monty and Pip,  as they both like to eat the pears.   I'm not so impressed as we have flowers growing underneath.  More importantly we also have some large sage plants and  chives there which don't really need dogs trampling on them on their way to retrieve the fruit.  So this evening I picked all the fruit from the tree,  18lbs of small pears, some ready to eat, some for keeping and the bruised/over ripe ones I'm going to try making cider with.

Another plant that grows here is the cardoon, it's most spectacular when in flower although it's supposed to be for eating - the leaves that is, not the flower - although I don't know anyone who does eat it.  It looks tough, but maybe we should try it, possibly it'd be ok in soups or stews?

Any ideas?

 We  have a pear tree in the front garden, but have no idea what type of pear it is.  I only know the sort  the supermarket sells, usually Conference and  (possibly)  Comice?   But this tree produces very small, bite sized pears, they are ripening now, sweet and juicy but still with crunch - a bit like an apple I suppose.  The closest I have come to finding what type we have is here  because ours look very similar.    Ask the neighbours I hear you say,  tried that,  they look at you and say "Well, it's a pear!   What else could it be?"

More mulberries!

Rolled up the nets on Monday - another 24lbs.  Did it again on Wednesday - this time 41lbs had dropped!!!!   And if you watch the tree,  you can see the  fruit falling off.  When the birds go in to eat the fruit or the breeze blows, even more comes down.

So far we have 95 lbs brewing which should produce about 50/60 litres of wine.  I hope it's nice!

Maybe we should start drying them now  and adding them to muesli, cakes and puddings later in the year.  Or even selling them - just look at the price!

Todays harvest....

Went out to shake the tree this morning only to find lots of mulberries had fallen without any need to shake.  Rolled up the nets, took the fruit indoors and weighed it....19lbs or nearly 9 kgs.
So another 20 ltrs of wine on the go, the nets back down and we'll see what drops overnight.

The dwarf Borlotto beans are 'beaning'  - we have 4 beds on the go  and these are the first ones to produce.  We are planning on eating and freezing to start with and if they produce faster than we need, we'll leave them to go to seed and keep either for soups/stews etc in the winter or next years planting.   The same will then happen for the next beds....or so we hope! (we have 80+ plants in each bed so they should produce far faster than we need and we expect to have a surplus of dried beans for the next few years planting and / or eating)

The cucumbers, courgettes, melon and water melons are all in flower,  the tomatoes are fruiting well as are  the strawberries, although the toms aren't yet ripe.  Spinach and mustard are being picked for salad leaves, although the mustard is also for seeds.  There are 25 sweet corn up  and they are about 2 ft tall - this is a much better result than last year when they just disappeared!

The red cabbages, cauliflowers and sprouts are all in 'cages' to  protect against cabbage white butterflies and so far that seems to be working, although the dreaded aphids have got onto some of the cauliflowers.  We now know to put problem plants  in lots of different places,  hoping to fool the insects and apart from that one group of cauliflowers, everything else is ok.

Peanuts and sweet potatoes are a new thing this year, and  we're quite impressed so far, over half the nuts have grown and 8 out of 10 sweet potato slips.   The nuts we'll keep as seeds for next year  and so we should be able to increase our stock, eventually having enough to roast!

A while back I mentioned how to increase stock by a) planting out the side shoots from tomatoes and b) planting the cut-off base of an onion.... yes, it all works and in fact I think the onions are stronger than the sets we bought and planted!!   Each base seems to make at least 2 if not 3 new ones, once strong and  rooted can be cut up and replanted.  At first I didn't think the tomatoes would take, but they have and are looking very healthy so give it a try!

Here we go round the mulberry bush

Most of us remember the nursery rhyme about going round the mulberry bush on a cold and frosty morning, but this 'bush' is about 8 metres  high with a diameter of about 12 metres.  Our olive nets are 8m by 5m and had to be moved to catch the  fruit as it fell off.                            

We collected 5 kgs today  which we have started brewing, that should give us about 10 litres of mulberry wine and the nets are back down underneath to see what drops overnight.  The golden orioles are nesting in the tree and they eat the fruit, along with many other birds.  We can only reach the lower branches, even with a hooked stick to shake the branches with.  We don't want to scare the birds off,  just get some of the fruit!   They're welcome to the top of the tree - it's far too high for us anyway.

Thanks to J for the photo.  I couldn't get all the tree in on my camera, his has a wider lens than mine.