A bit of a glut of fruit in my garden. I’ve therefore been drying raspberries and currants :) At the bottom are the dried fruit, also bilberries and saskatoons!
Drying berries
Category Archives: Fruit
Edimental apples
Apple trees in full bloom are a wonderful sight, aren’t they? I’ve seldom seen so many flowers on them as this and the rowans are also flowering well which probably means that the apple tree moth (rognebærmøll), which prefer rowans, will keep off the apples this year! (here’s a page about the moth http://ukmoths.org.uk/species/argyresthia-conjugella )
Bonus Day 4 Permaveggies grafting course
It wasn’t planned at all (the best things aren’t), but our Swedish guests Christian Odberger and Dante Hellstrøm stayed over until Monday evening to dig up a few (!) must-have plants from my garden. Our “camper” Berit Børte also accepted the offer to stay over until Monday. Christian had brought grafting material with him and kindly volunteered to do a grafting course for us, so here are the pictures of Christian, Berit and my garden helper Lorna from Belfast grafting some 6 varieties of apple on to a wild apple tree, the seeds of which I collected at Warsash (on the solent), Hampshire UK some 13-14 years ago!! AND it was a beautiful afternoon too! See also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=4617
Physalis “Indian Strain”?
This Physalis which I’ve called “Indian Strain” is now going into its 7th year. I got this from Seed Savers Exchange in the US. However, that one is supposed to be a tomatillo and I wonder if I mixed it up with another I got at about the same time, P. heterophylla, clammy ground cherry, although the stems are not clammy (sticky) to the feel. That would explain it’s hardiness as it is found in the wild north to Canada (see http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=PHHEH3). I definitely planted heterophylla in the garden and it’s survived since 2009 without winter protection, but the summer is just too cold for fruit (it does flower).
It lives in a cold bedroom all year and produces a few fruit most of the year, even continuing to ripen fruit despite the temperature being often under 10C. The fruit are sweet and have good flavour. It’s not hugely productive but little bother (aphids don’t bother it). I cut it back when it gets too straggly. See also http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=2146. Anyone visiting is welcome to to a cutting. I harvested a few this morning:
Chaenomeles cathayensis
A packet of seed arrived from a friend in a botanical garden that I trade with occasionally today. Chaenomeles cathayensis! I think there’s enough seed here to turn my diversity garden into a monoculture! And with the seed, some fruit leather made of the fruit of the same species :) Very tasty!
Balcony view
Looking down from the bedroom balcony on to a bed I know as “SSHB” (south side house bed, of course!). Here we see Akebia quinata attempting it’s world take over….but my Kiwi (sowed from a shop bought fruit some 15 years ago) refuses to be beaten and just manages to thrust a few leaves above the Akebia. You can also see flowering runner bean…really too late this year after last summer’s bumper crop…and perennial buckwheat…and flowering skirret…and my Amphicarpaea (hog peanut) is under that lot (need to help it a bit more next year…
