Voyage Award

My challenge to my Self for the Voyage Award was to grow more fruit, and I have found that difficult as the process of renovating a neglected and overgrown fruit garden with old bushes cannot be achieved in a season. I probably harvested a smaller amount last Summer in 2024 than some previous years. However, through reaching out to friends I was able to propagate from at least six new sources of plant material, as well as striking cuttings from my existing bushes to produce a lot of new, young and healthy bushes, over 50 in f act. Quite a few of these have flowered this Spring and are growing fruit. This is helpful, not just as I may be able to eat some, but also I can see the shape and colour and seasonality of the variety, even if I do not know the given name. I now have 3 varieties of Blackcurrant, 2 Redcurrants, 2 Whitecurrants (maybe only 1 Variety - White Versailles), 10 Gooseberry, 2 Loganberry and 1 Worcesterberry.    

This Spring has been very sunny and the blossom on the fruit, including the apples and pears has been amazing. Blackcurrant Mitchells Worcesterberry - Native American plant Whitecurrant White Versailles I have been working on the restoration of the fruit garden stock, mostly by looking after the 50+ cuttings which successfully took from last Winter's propagating sessions.  I have had to pot up the individual cuttings which were sharing a pot, as I often put 4 cuttings together, thinking that they would not all take.  Many of the names of the varieties are unknown, so they are named for their provenance. Redcurrant 'Slees' Gooseberry May Duke   Gooseberry Leveller I have Blackcurrant 'Mitchells', Redcurrant 'Sports Centre' and Gooseberry 'Wheatland (Front)' and 'Wheatland (Red)', for example.   Gooseberry 'Dolton Red' This winter, there was a fair amount of damage by bullfinches to the gooseberries, stripping the fruit buds off the ste...

One thing I have learned during this challenge about my Rhubarb crop is that I have a pest in the garden which is responsible for damaging it.  Every year my Rhubarb comes up in February or March looking healthy, but by May it starts looking as if it is too dry or not well-fed. I had been blaming my poor cultivation practices. However, by researching online I discovered that there is a weevil called a Rhubarb Curculio Beetle, which sucks the sap from the stems and is responsible for a jelly-like substance.  Other surface damage on the stem could be from slugs, but that is not so serious. Damage from Curculio Weevil - 2024 The host plant for these weevils is the Dock, predominantly Curled Dock, which I have in plenty around the garden. Impossible to rid our large garden of them all.  They don't actually lay eggs successfully in Rhubarb, but they try to.As an experiment, I dug up several plants and put them in pots.  They started to grow well, as the pest was not damag...

Well, after all my efforts, the overall harvest has been disappointing in quantity (see below), but it has been interesting renovating the garden, taking cuttings and discovering which types of soft fruit I actually have in the garden.  I can certainly move around the Fruit Garden now and can keep the paths mown. I have also taken some Brown Turkey Fig cuttings from my potted Fig tree, which produced 5 ripe figs this year. Some of the varieties are unknown, so I have named them after the place they came from, for example, 'Red Gooseberry Dolton' or 'Blackcurrant Slees'.  All of the existing bushes produced a little fruit. I used net curtains to protect some bushes. I have the following varieties already planted: Gooseberry Careless (pre-1858) (Green-Transparent) Gooseberry Leveller (pre-1858) (Green) Gooseberry May Duke (Red) (1890) Gooseberry Lynden (smooth fruit flushed red) Gooseberry Dolton (Red) Worcesterberry (Native North American) Whitecurrant White Versailles (...

This year's challenge was about soft fruit. I had a reason for this. The bullfinches are an annual challenge to our orchard, and we have no way of controlling them, so we are powerless to influence apple crops. Some years we have too many, this year we will have very few. Ellisons Orange - May However we do have about some pears on Buerre Hardy Pear for the second year.  It's a young tree and is still maturing.  They ripen in mid-September.

I have mapped all the soft fruit plants and numbered them in my garden diary. I have fruit on every bush so far. May Duke ripening - early variety I have realised that this year I will get a small but diverse crop. But all this work should result in a better crop next year, if I prune correctly. My thoughts are turning to how to protect them from birds with net curtain. Careless - 30-40 year old bush on 4th June Probably Leveller - 4th June Worcesterberry - 4th June Unknown Gooseberry no 3 - 4th June Lynden - at least 30 years old Unknown, possibly Careless, number 4