Topics for June:  You lose some - you win some! A tale of two cherries..... The first fruits of summer..... Can you have Strawberry Fields forever? .....Should you replace strawberry plants after 3 years?.....  Raspberries.....  Cherries..... Looking after Container & polytunnel fruit.... Summer citrus care....  Don't worry about the cream!...

The heartbreaking sight of splitting and rotting cherries	The sour cherries should have a chance to ripen fully without bird damage under their cover of Enviromesh

You lose some - you win some!  A tale of two cherries

From my experience of the last 40 years of watching the increasingly erratic weather patterns undoubtedly associated with climate change, growing many varieties of fruit will become increasingly difficult in the future.  It will not always produce reliable crops - so I think that definitely the most sensible thing to do is to hedge one's bets by growing as wide a variety of health-giving fruits as possible. The erratic weather will often mean that there will be some years in which some varieties of particular tree fruits which flower early in the year, and then swell their fruits in gentle spring rains may be a disaster - as they have been this year. This year all of my apples were badly affected by the almost three-month long drought, the young fruitlets dropping off in May - as opposed to just some dropping in June - the fabled 'June drop' - which the old gardeners always talked about, after which they would select and thin the remaining fruits. This year - there were none to thin! 

At the end of May on examining the apple trees in the 5 year old new orchard, I found that due to cold, wet and windy weather at pollination-time, some had pollinated badly and were bearing very few fruits, whereas other varieties which flowered slightly earlier, had obviously missed that and had set many fruits. I was very worried though, and rightly so it transpired, knowing that since March we'd had a complete drought - and you can't water an entire orchard - even if there wasn't a hosepipe ban! You'd need your own water supply or lagoon - actually we did have our own water supply for our first few years here.  The hill we live on - appropriately named Springhill on old maps - has many springs which never ran dry even in the hottest summer - including a sparklingly clear one at the rear of our land where it separated our 5 acres from our neighbour.  It was so clean when we first came here that we often had eels travelling up it from the estuary a few miles further down the coast. Sadly, as I've often mentioned here on my blog - since our intensive famer neighbour bought the land adjoining us - that water supply has now gradually become so polluted with pesticides and artificial fertilisers that it now resembles a lifeless open sewer - so cannot be used for watering anything any more, and we had to fence it off so that livestock could no longer drink from it! 

Looking at the trees in the middle of this month - I found that almost all of the trees carrying fruits had already dropped them - with at most only 5 or 6 fruits on some - and none on others! Unfortunately it seems to be the later-ripening, long-keeping varieties which keep to Christmas or even early spring the following year that seem to have been the most affected. Many of these would all have flowered at around the same time, and are the varieties which I rely on to fill my winter apple store.  This is why it's so important to choose your varieties carefully if planting a new orchard or even just a tree or two so that you have a range of trees that not only overlap their flowering times and will pollinate each other - but also have diverse ripening times, depending on your needs.  We've had wonderful crops from the new orchard for the last three years, and also from the old orchard on the other side of our 5 acres, near our boundary.  There is not one apple in the old orchard this year, and the ones that are carrying the most fruit this year are a few earlier ripening ones which won't keep more than a couple of weeks, Red Devil, Charles Ross and the slightly later Christmas Pippin (which only just about keeps until Christmas!).

Exactly the same happened on the 'Celeste' sweet cherry trees! They had all clearly enjoyed perfect weather at pollination time, the bees as usual had done a fantastic job, and at the beginning of the month the trees were carrying the biggest crop I've ever seen.  After a few days of continuously high temperatures mid-month though - they were already dropping off at speed. Last week we had torrential rain for several days, and almost all of any fruits still left on the trees have split, and those not dropping off are going mouldy, as you can see from the heartbreakingly sad pictures above.  I try to be philosophical and not too down-hearted though, and to always find something to cheer me up and encourage me to keep going - even in the most disappointing of circumstances. This year it's the Sea Buckthorn which is looking fantastic - the berries so crowded along the branches that they reminded me of swarms of bees when I looked at them a couple of days ago. Although the picking and processing is without doubt the least fun and most painful of ANY fruit, even blackberries - they're also one of the most healthy, and are chock full of nutrients, so I'm always glad to have them in the freezer for immune-boosting and incredibly delicious winter smoothies tasting like a cross between Seville oranges and mouth watering orange sherbet. I always compare picking and processing Sea Buckthorn to being a bit like childbirth - absolute hell at the time but with very enjoyable results afterwards!  

Meanwhile, this morning I covered the sour cherries which are growing on the north wall of the stables, just opposite the polytunnel door, with a sheet of Enviromesh secured with wooden clothes pegs, which I hope will stop the birds spotting their bright red colour and also frighten them off as it flaps in the wind a bit. The birds had only just realised they are there as they've been so busy gobbling up all the damaged sweet cherries, At least we may get some cherries - even if only the sour ones - but at least they're great for cooking and even higher in healthy nutrients than the sweet varieties!  So as I say above - you lose some - you win some!

Fruit growing has always been a long-term investment - but 40 years ago when I planted my first orchard - that investment was a far more reliable one. Now it is much less certain, and the only way that we will be able to grow enough fruit to supply a healthy diet in the future will be to rely on a wide diversity of cultivars of different fruits, not to rely on huge monocultures of any one cultivar of cherry, apple. plum or whatever the type of fruit may be. Only that way can we ensure at least some fruit - whatever the weather may throw at us!

Mixed berries - Nature's precious midsummer jewels.

The first fruits of summer!

Above is a bowlful of the early mixed berries and cherries that we're enjoying from the polytunnel right now before the outside ones are ripe. There are raspberries Erika, Joan J and purple one Glen Coe, Tayberries, blackberry Reuben, Alpine (or wild-type) strawberries, also Albion, Mara des Bois, Gento and Old White strawberries, and Morello cherries.  I grow a wide variety in the polytunnel so that there is almost always something to pick no matter what the weather is like outside - or how ingenious the birds are!

Some of the more exotic top fruits like figs, potted dwarf cherries and early peaches are just starting to ripen now too - a little later that most years due to the lateness of the season - and it's really beginning to taste like high summer now! The ever-reliable perpetual-fruiting strawberries were the first fruits to produce berries in early May - but we've been eating fruit of all kinds for several weeks now as you can see above. The weather has been really hot during the days for most of the last few weeks - although the nights have been very cold.  Some nights have been really chilly, and today the weather is windy. Luckily though - with the protection of the polytunnel all the berry crops in pots will continue to crop well if kept well-watered - so they are definitely worth the space they take up!  The peaches are looking promising too. Keeping all fruit well watered and mulched will be most important in hot weather now - as the first thing to go is the fruit if plants are stressed by any dryness at the roots.  Due also to the good summer last year - there are a lot more bees around too - doing their vital job of pollination. As I'm constantly saying - growing flowers for bees and other pollinators is a good idea everywhere in the garden, including and especially in the fruit garden. Without bees - we wouldn't have a lot of fruit or nuts such as peaches, apricots, almonds and raspberries, to name just a few. Bees are vital to almost 3/4 of our food supply, so we need to encourage them and look after them by not using pesticides, particularly now that they're in serious trouble, being in decline in many areas. 

 Tunnel-grown strawberries Albion, Gento, Christine & Malling Centenary - which have been cropping since early May

Can you have Strawberry Fields forever?

 

 

Perpetual Strawberry - 'Malling Opal' - 63g!

 

Well maybe not forever - but certainly from May until November if you grow some of the perpetual (or ever-bearing) varieties in a polytunnel! I ordered 'cold stored' runners of a new variety of 'perpetual' strawberry - from Ken Muir's Nursery last month by phone (I like to try at least one new variety of something each year). The beautifully established plug plants (with flower buds!) arrived quickly by post (you can't beat that) and are now already settling into their new home! They will fruit very soon - not too long to wait to try a new variety!  

 

 

Apropos the 'buying local' principle by the way - I always try all the Irish nurseries for plants first (more in hope than expectation!) Usually they have very little choice of varieties. The - 'couldn't care less' - "You can put your name down, and we might have it if we remember it next autumn" - which I've had from some nurseries is an attitude that doesn't really do it for me! Helpful, efficient, informative and knowledgeable (rare) service is so much better if you want people's return business! So many of the nurseries don't even sell the varieties that are best suited to our climate! 

 

 

I grow several different varieties of perpetual strawberries, as they're far better value for the space they take up than the summer fruiting varieties which take up just the same amount of space but only fruit once. The flavour of the perpetuals is just as good if not better.  After the first flush of fruit in June (or earlier in the tunnel),  they'll take a break for a couple of weeks, then continue flowering and fruiting all summer and autumn until the first frosts. In the tunnel they never seem to stop!  They're great value for money and really earn their space. All the varieties tend to differ slightly, both in cropping potential and flavour - 'Gento', the old strawberry I mentioned above was bred in France in the '60's and sadly is not available commercially any more but 'Mara des Bois', which was bred from it - softer but still with a fabulous flavour, and it's widely available. 'Albion' is another good fruiter with a great flavour which even freezes well - thawing without falling apart - and 'Everest' is good too. One I got a couple of years ago - 'Malling Opel' - seemed a bit of a shy fruiter at first, but it's settled down nicely now into regular cropping, has a great flavour and is just enormous! Unusually the berries will hold a long time on the plants once they look ripe - and actually develop an even deeper flavour the longer you can bear to leave them! The same goes for many of the more modern varieties - which tend to be firmer and keep longer as they've been bred for travel-ability and shelf life. They don't all have the best flavour though - so what's the point?  As I always say - looks aren't everything! Growing your own allows you to choose the variety and also to pick it at maximum ripeness for the very best flavour.

 

 

Early varieties of summer strawberries should all be cropping well now. It's really important to keep them up off the ground with a good old fashioned mulch of straw, even in dry weather. This keeps them clean and keeps the air circulating around the fruit - helping to prevent grey mould (botrytis) disease. If you do find any fruit which is diseased then pick it off straight away, or it will infect everything else very quickly! 

 

 

Should you replace strawberry plants after 3 years?

 

Some people say you should replace strawberry stocks after three years but personally I think that's unnecessary if your plants are healthy.  It's perfectly alright to continue to propagate from healthy plants. This year my old favourite Gento seems even better than ever - thoroughly rejuvenated and enjoying the five star treatment it's now getting in the east tunnel and the last few weeks of hot weather! It has been producing wave after wave of huge delicious fruits and has been flowering continuously since early May! The most important thing with strawberries is to ONLY EVER propagate from the most productive plants which are fruiting well, with perfect looking, healthy leaves - not twisted or blotched with yellow, which might indicate virus. Then you can't go wrong. It's also a good idea to move them to fresh ground every 3-4 years.

 

We've been enjoying the first of our strawberries from the tunnels for over a month now. We had a taste testing recently and decided that meltingly delicious Gento was still definitely tops for flavour - with Albion coming a close second, Mara des Bois next, then Malling Opal and the much vaunted old French variety Gariguette after that. Christine and Malling Centenary came last - good flavour but not that sensational - and I want sensational in strawberries! Malling Centenary is the one set to replace Elsanta - which I don't grow because I think it's completely tasteless - sadly that's the one sold in many garden centres! Malling Centenary is summer fruiting - but a huge cropper with a pretty good taste and also good disease resistance. Gento is an old variety I've mentioned before - which was bred in France in the early 1960's - and my stock came as runners taken from plants growing in the garden where I grew up almost 40 years ago. I took some runners from the plants in the kitchen garden there, when my now grown-up children were toddlers - and the plants I have now are the much-propagated offspring of those original plants! I would hate to lose them - they're such a lovely connection to that magical garden every inch of which I remember so well, and visit so often in my daydreams.  Most of it, including the 6 acres of wonderful orchards I played in as a child and saw my first Robin's nest. are now sadly lost forever under a ghastly housing estate - like so many other long lost old gardens! 

 

 

Conventionally-grown strawberries are one of the most sprayed crops! I think that many people are unaware of this.  In organic gardening and farming, good husbandry and good housekeeping take the place of the fungicides and pesticides used as a matter of course in conventional chemical growing. Keeping one step ahead of any possible pests and diseases is the key.  Keep an eye out for any slugs too - they'll hide under the straw if you use it and come out at night for a strawberry supper if they get the chance! My early variety of choice now is Christine, which I think tastes every bit as good as the old variety Royal Sovereign - the flavour 'yardstick' for the last century or so. 'Christine' is very disease resistant and reliable, and forces very well in pots, so I usually have a good succession from early May onwards, first in the tunnel and then outside (barring accidents!!).  I always take fresh runners of strawberries I want to force every year, growing them on outside in 2 litre pots for the rest of the year, and then bringing them into the tunnel in early February. As always when propagating anything - I make sure to take runners only from the heaviest cropping and healthiest-looking plants!

 

 

Strawberries must also be securely covered against marauding blackbirds now - who like Goldilocks always like to try tasting a few before they find one that's just right! As a result, they can do a lot of damage very quickly - so l check the netting covering them every day - to make sure there are no chinks where they can sneak in!  Do make sure though that the netting you use is large enough to allow bees in easily though, so that they can pollinate all fruits, or you'll have very poor crops. The really big bumble bees can get stuck in very fine netting poor things, and life is tough enough for them right now!  Without bees - we wouldn't have any crops or be around ourselves for long either!

 

 

Raspberries

 

The enormous delicious fruits of autumn raspberry Joan J

 

  

The early crop on the 'primocane' types of autumn fruiting raspberries (which crop again on last autumn's fruited canes) is just flowering now outside - and in the fruit tunnel, the pots of 'Joan J' brought in earlier on to bring them forward are already ripening their huge delicious fruits.  As soon as the old canes I left on from last year have finished fruiting, all of them will be cut back down to the base and the plants fed, so that they can concentrate all their energy into the new canes already developing which will fruit this autumn and again, lower down the canes, in early summer next year. I grow the excellent large, tasty varieties 'Brice' (red), 'Allgold' (yellow fruited), and also 'Joan J' - a new variety which Joy Larkcom recommended to me when she was staying here  a few years ago - she thought it tasted as good as the variety 'Brice', which I already had in the garden. Actually I think it's even better. It's a huge cropper, with big, firm fruits that freeze exceptionally well. I've been growing it for about 6 years now and I love it. Last year I potted some up in 10lt pots and they fruited really well last autumn. We even had a few for Christmas! They're now carrying a huge early crop which is just starting to ripen. The experiment was definitely a great success.

 

 

  

I love experimenting - that's what makes gardening interesting, and how you find new ways of doing things. The old kitchen gardeners of centuries ago were masters of extending the seasons at either end. I often see 'Heritage' and 'Autumn Bliss' recommended, (rather than the newer and better Brice and Joan J), I tried them both years ago and neither were anything like as good as those I've mentioned.  I'm actually sorry I ever planted them, as they've both become very invasive weeds in the garden!!  I keep digging them out wherever I find them and planting them down in the wood for the wildlife but I just can't get rid of them!) I love the good tasting summer varieties too - but like strawberries - if you've only got room for one row of raspberries, then it makes more sense to grow one of the new autumn fruiting ones - they have just as good a flavour and are so much better value for the space they occupy since they produce fruit twice a year if you feed them well and prune them my way.

 

 

When it comes to pests - if you've done your homework properly and encouraged a good balanced environment for attracting birds and beneficial insects into your garden - then you shouldn't really have much of a problem. The odd greenfly - if you can find any -is easily dealt with by a sharp jet from the hose, but I've hardly seen one all year so far, as the huge population of birds are absolutely desperate for food for their fledglings, and are constantly patrolling the garden searching for insects. Due to a few bad summers for insect breeding - apart from last summer - food supplies may be short - so if you keep feeding the birds, with peanuts (in a feeder) and mealworms - either dried or fresh, it will encourage them to stay in your garden and they'll help you keep potential pests down - rather than going further afield. 

 

 

Diseases, as I've already mentioned, are normally avoided by good cultivation techniques - giving plants optimum growing conditions, good air circulation and good hygiene practices  by that I mean keeping an eye out for any rotting or diseased fruit and disposing of it immediately. Consistent - rather than erratic watering also helps to keep plant stress down, feeding properly and also mulching - to retain moisture, keep roots cool and stop any competition from weed growth.  Fruit like gooseberries can suffer from powdery mildew if they become dry at the roots but growing the newer, more disease resistant varieties like 'Invicta' can help.

 

 

Look after fruit in containers and polytunnel fruit

 

 

If you have any kind of fruit in containers - keep plants consistently and evenly watered or any developing fruit may drop off. The first thing any fruiting plants do if they're stressed is to ditch their fruit! This can often happen with figs about 2-3 weeks after they've gone short of water - and often you don't remember why they're now dropping fruit. Constantly just moist, not saturated or very dry, is the key with them. It's also a good thing to feed them weekly with a good quality, organic, high-potash liquid tomato feed. If you don't have your own comfrey/nettle feed, or are not sure of it's consistent quality, then it's worth buying a good balanced proprietary organic brand such as Osmo liquid tomato feed - which I find excellent for everything. Being short of the correct nutrients will also stress the plant and could potentially affect next year's fruit bud development. If you're planting permanent fruit in containers of whatever sort - always make sure there's good drainage and leave enough room at the top for watering and mulching.

 

 

If you're growing grapes keep pinching out the fruiting shoots two leaves beyond the developing bunch on each spur as the shoots grow, and any sub-laterals growing off those shoots to one leaf beyond their base. One good sized bunch per spur is enough for the vine to develop and ripen properly if you want decent sized dessert grapes of seeded varieties - but you can let the seedless ones carry two bunches per spur. Give them a weekly feed now, whether they're in pots or in  the ground. Tie in any non-fruiting leading shoots, particularly on seedless grapes - you'll be depending on those for next year's crop! 

 

 

Figs confined in pots need feeding at every other watering now as the early 'breba' crop is developing and so are tiny young autumn figlets. Don't let them dry out completely and wilt or they will immediately drop developing fruitlets. The overwintered crop of figs on some varieties is starting to ripen now - I can't wait! I'm almost tempted to say these are my favourites too!....Oh hang it - I just love all fruit! The same goes for peaches, which are developing fast now, the early ones being almost table-tennis ball sized now.

 

The golden berries/cape gooseberries now ripe on last year's overwintered plants come ready-packed by Nature in their own, protective little 'designer' paper cases!  Cape gooseberries are actually tender perennials and are worth trying to keep over winter if you have room for them, in order to get an early crop.  I'm also growing a new variety this year, from The Seed Coop - called Schonbrunner Gold. Although it was only sown on the 20th March - it's looking very healthy and vigorous, already flowering and I'm very pleased with it.  Once they start to produce fruit, the productive bushes will keep on flowering and fruiting all summer and autumn in the tunnel. They'll be ripening from late July/August onwards, and the fruit will keep in their little paper cases for months in the salad drawer of the fridge.

 

 

Summer citrus care

 

Lemons in pots can stand outside during the summer in a sheltered spot out of the wind. They're flowering at the moment and the bees will help to pollinate them. Don't forget to water them and give them a high nitrogen liquid feed like nettle stew - mixed with rainwater (not tap water) every fortnight. On TV some time ago we were shown some miserably 'chlorotic'-looking yellowy-leaved lemon trees - the proud presenter didn't mention that they are actually lime-hating plants like rhododendrons - or perhaps he didn't actually know! 

 

 

All citrus trees are starting to make a lot of new growth now - the small, soft, brownish-red new shoots also carry the beautifully scented flowers. The older leaves may be looking a little yellowish after the winter - particularly if you've used tap water at all for watering them - which they hate!  You can remedy this mineral imbalance by using an organic feed like Maxicrop seaweed and sequestered iron feed, which is widely available. Lemons can be incredibly productive if you look after them well - and they're not complicated to grow - just treat them like rhododendrons or other ericaceous plants. Scale insect is the worst pest - and can be easily dealt with by using an organic soap spray - but NOT when the soft young shoots are developing or you will burn them. The soap works a treat as it coats the scale insect all over so then it can't breathe through it's skin as it normally would, so it suffocates and dies. Scale insect can badly weaken the plants and make 'honeydew' which encourages 'sooty mould'  to grow - disfiguring and again weakening the trees by blocking photosynthesis.  Small infestations can also be dealt with by painting gently heated and then cooled, liquid coconut oil onto each insect - a time consuming but very effective job for a wet day!

 

 

From now on I also give mine a weekly feed of Osmo Universal Organic plant food - mixed into rainwater.  This is a balanced feed and I find it works very well on lemons, or anything else where you want to promote growth or that needs a bit of a boost. It works very fast too. Don't use a high potash chemical tomato food on lemons as they don't like them.

 

 

Don't worry about the cream! Just enjoy the bountiful harvests of summer 

 

The latest scientific thinking on that is that all dairy products are actually good for you!  I always thought they were anyway! And of course all organic dairy products, including cream, are naturally far higher in good Omega 3 fats than non-organic, so that means they're even healthier!  The fat in dairy products is where most of the nutrients are. If you're worried about all the calories - then just work them off with all that weeding and mulching!!  Actually though, I think creme fraiche is much nicer than cream anyway - it's even better for you than ordinary cream - as it's also probiotic, and especially so if you make it at home more cheaply using kefir grains. Try making an ice cream with just strawberries, homemade creme fraiche or yogurt, a little sugar or organic Stevia drops and a dash of lemon juice - it's heavenly! Yum!  That's for when you get fed up with them straight, or dipped in melted 99% dark chocolate of course - and that's not just healthy - but it's positively medicinal in fact, with all the healthy polyphenols in the dark chocolate!! 

 

Really the best thing about growing your own organic fruit is that you can eat it properly ripe and still warm from the sun - while it's super-fresh and mouth-wateringly good! - Enjoy!

 

(Please note. I really enjoy sharing my original ideas and 40 years experience of growing and cooking my own organic food with you. It's most satisfying and naturally also very complimentary if others find "inspiration" in my work......But if you do happen to copy any of my material, or repeat it in any way online - I would appreciate it very much if you would please mention that it originally came from me. It's the result of many years of hard work and hard-won experience. Thank you.)