Great year for quince at the orchard.

We picked the quince fruit yesterday at the orchard.  They are still as hard as rocks, but the pips are mature when you cut the fruit open and they pick easily from the tree. This is the first year we've had a good crop on this young tree, which we planted 5 years ago. The tree name is Serbian Gold which is one that can survive north of the Watford Gap.

They need to be cooked to soften the fruit, and they have a wonderful perfume which scents out any room where you store them. We're making quince jelly this year, ready for Christmas. It's excellent on toast or as an accompaniment to meats and cheese.

Quince from our Serbian Gold

We found one of the fruit on the ground beneath the tree with teeth marks in the surface. Someone must have had quite a surprise when they tried to bite into it thinking it was an apple.  

Within a few days we've converted half the crop in to delicious quince jelly (no, there's no gelatine in there, just natural pectin). It is beautifully clear and fragrant with a delicate pink colour. I guess some people might get a jar of this in their Xmas hamper. 

Quince jelly made from Turnditch Orchard fruit.

Grease Bands on the fruit trees

I was over at the Turnditch orchard this afternoon applying  Vitax fruit tree grease to the trunks of the fruit trees. The stuff is spread in a 100 cm band around the trunk at a height of approximately 40 cm. It helps to keep wingless parasites from climbing up the trunk to lay their eggs in the Winter. Notably the main such parasite is the Winter Moth, whose caterpillars can cause a lot of leaf damage in the Spring. In the summer the grease also keeps ants away from the trees. The ants "farm" aphids in the trees and protect them from predators such as Ladybirds. Once the ant pathways up the tree trunk are blocked the parasites such as aphids tend to disappear as the flying predators operate unhindered.

The grease is black and very sticky. It is made from Rapeseed Oil (canola).

Talking of parasites, I found the "missing" quince fruit in the orchard. It was laying in the grass about 30 metres from the quince tree.  A bite had been taken out from one side of the fruit, it looks like the bite of a juvenile human. An education for them perhaps?  Quince grown in this country are generally hard, very tart, and almost inedible until cooked.

The Mystery of the Missing Quince

This afternoon I was able to visit the orchard to complete a section of stock fencing work at the neglected end of the site. Prior to our arrival I don't think that section of the orchard has received any maintenance work in the past forty years. There's almost nothing left of the original boundary fence at the railway end of the site. The area was heavily overgrown and also overshadowed by unmaintained trees. Earlier in the year sheep from the adjoining field were using this area as a route into the orchard. The neighbouring farmer should fixed the fence to stop his sheep straying but nothing happened. 

I had to remove a couple of heavily leaning trees to clear the boundary edge, but after that work I was able to install the final section of stock fence this afternoon. Hopefully this will keep unwanted two legged and quadruped from invading from that end of the orchard.

I was feeling quite calm and relaxed after the success and was checking the fruit trees around the orchard. We have a young quince tree (Serbian Gold) which is smothered in beautiful pink blossom in the spring. To give the tree a chance to grow I remove most of the fruitlets, and additionally the tree drops some of its own accord in the late summer. We'd been left with two good sized quince fruit on the tree. You don't normally pick quince fruit, in the UK, until early November, so we were going to leave the fruit on the tree for two more weeks. When grown in the UK they are hard and bitter until cooked. These Serbian Gold quince fruit look quite like a pear once the "fur" has fallen off.

One of the two remaining quince fruit has disappeared from the tree in the last 48 hours. If someone picked it thinking it was a pear they are going to be bitterly disappointed when they attempt to bite into it. I hope it didn't go to waste.

Perhaps the time has come to re-install the field gate at the entrance to the orchard to dissuade people from wandering in to the fruit trees.

Edit: 2/11/2016 The missing fruit was located.

Spring in the orchard

The orchard is bursting into life with Spring flowers and baby fruit. Many wildflowers remain in the borders, but we are now keeping the grass and weeds short in the main field to reduce growing competition for the fruit trees.

The Serbian Gold Quince is looking particularly healthy with attractive pink flowers just opening. 

Serbian Gold Quince in bloom

The cherries will bear fruit this year too, though we might pinch off 75% to avoid draining the young trees of energy.

Cherries forming in Turnditch orchard

First apple in the Orchard

When checking the orchard we saw the first apple growing on the Cobra apple tree. We're not expecting any fruit this year as the trees are young and will have to overcome the shock of transplanting into their new home in Turnditch Orchard. It will be interesting to see if the apple survives through to maturity in the autumn. The crab apples are loaded with tiny fruit, but at the moment we don't count them as fruit, but rather as a decorative pollinator plant.

Our first Cobra Apple in the orchard

We are allowing clumps of Comfrey to grow as their flowers are a good source of food for bees. The foliage also makes a good base for fertiliser. At the moment it is all looking very healthy and prolific.

Wild Comfrey in the Turnditch Orchard

We have had a bit of a failure with the Guinevere Plum tree. It was supplied as a potted three year old tree complete with root ball, but for some reason a lot of it has died back. However there is some signs of partial growth, so we'll get the secateurs out in the autumn and prune back the deadwood.

Struggling plum tree in the Orchard

Overall we are pleased with progress. Both the quince and the walnut tree are looking particularly healthy and happy in their new locations. The walnut tree will be fed by the body of our faithful old dog Rocky who was buried by it's roots in the Spring. Rocky lived to be 23 years old and now has the job of guarding the orchard. He was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier Labrador Cross who we took in as a rescue dog when he was 6 years old.

Rocky, died 2014  aged  23