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.
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.
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.
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