Voyage Award

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

In Winter I took a lot of cuttings from friends and most have taken, so I have 30+ new bushes to nurture now.     I don't know the name of most, but I have labelled the with their original location, so I know where they came from. I also found three Careless Gooseberry two-year old propagated bushes, one Redcurrant (Winkleigh) and quite a few Blackcurrants (Bank) from 2021 or 2022. So my guest planted four of them in May in a new bed. I have made comfrey liquid in plastic buckets to feed my plants.

Some were already forming fruits in April, such as the Redcurrant below. The bushes showed blossom in March and April, after the risk from bullfinches and frost was mostly over. 

I have made progress. Mowing the paths and weeding around the bushes. The Rhubarb initially was looking good in February and cropped in March/April. Timperley's Early.

This season my challenge is to restore my much loved but sadly neglected fruit garden. It's an area 8m by 12m. The photo shows how the brambles, docks and bracken had taken over. I had to cut my way in. I then fed the bushes with ash, mapped which varieties I think they are, and pruned lightly, as I want to have some fruit on each bush this year.