Monday, September 26

Mystery apples

20 September
All our potatoes have been dug - this time from the overspill bed, the one where any leftover sub standard seed potatoes were planted. The few in the brown bowl are Vales Sovereign. This variety is off out 2017 list as the tubers are badly affected with blight. Even earlier stored potatoes are rotting whereas other varieties planted alongside them are fine. Martyn posted about this here. 


Last week we picked more apples - quite a lot of apples in fact - from the apple hedge that we inherited when we took the plot. Apple hedge is the name we have given to the overgrown cordons. 

We have no idea what the varieties of apples are although we are pretty sure that the apples picked last week are Discovery and maybe another two other varieties are a Golden Delicious and Laxton's Superb. Can anyone suggest the variety of the apples shown above. They are eating apples but we have so many that lots have been cooked and frozen, some with blackberries. We are still picking fruit from our Loch Ness thornless blackberry.
We also harvested some apples of the other unknown variety. These had fallen from the tree.

Again suggestions for the name of the variety would be welcome.

As well as the apple hedge we have five more small apple 'trees' on the plot one of which is an Egremont Russet. We tried a couple of fruits when we had a coffee break. Although very tasty they were not quite fully ripe. Note the knife, number one rule when eating fruit from the plot is never bite into a whole fruit!

The club root resistant, Clapton cauliflowers have started to produce curds. We harvested three last week.

23 September
We are still picking yellow raspberries but now there is a higher proportion of spoiled fruit on the canes.


The tomatoes above are from the plot greenhouse.

The one pear was picked from our small, Invincible pear tree. It wasn't ripe but I removed it as it was sitting on the soil. The trees branches are bowing under the weight of the remaining fruit.

I think the orange spots on this tree are pear tree rust which I will post about at a later date.


You may also notice a couple of potatoes on the 23 September collection - these are Casablancas that escaped the initial harvest.

You may remember that we used up our left over pea seeds making a late sowing in Mid July. We knew that the chances were that they wouldn't produce a crop but we have managed to pick a few pods. The plants have been affected by mildew.

The peas however, are just fine.



24 September
The tomatoes above are from the blight affected outdoor, plot plants. Although some fruit is spoiled we can still salvage some. 


We have also started to harvest our carrots which will hopefully last through winter.


25 September
I picked a few nuts from the Kent Cobnut. There may be more nuts in there but the bush is a bit dense and high to spot them.
We picked most of the ripe tomatoes from the garden greenhouse.

We have grown lots of the small sweet tomatoes this year. Most of the above were made into a tomato sauce which was frozen. This will make a base for pasta recipes etc.


I always forget to mention bits and pieces harvested from the garden as it is usually a case of pick and eat. I did remember to take a photos of a few spring onions and a sprig of parsley destined for an omelette.





36 comments:

  1. Try this web site to identify your apples. Maybe you find it.
    http://www.applename.com/

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    1. I did try this with the first apple but none of the options described it, Mr P I'll try the other later.

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  2. I'd never seen a cobnut before. They look somewhat like a hazelnut. Everything you've shown looks so plump and gorgeous. I think apple and blackberry pie is the best!

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  3. You've had some great harvests, Sue, and it all looks so healthy. Can cauliflower be frozen or do you eat a lot of cauliflower anyway? Three at once would floor me!

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    1. My sister had one of them, Caro but we ate the other two. One meal was three of us and we had it raw as part of a salad. You can freeze it and no doubt we will be doing this too.

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  4. I was going to ask whether you freeze your cauliflower as well. Fantastic straight, clean carrots. Carrots are still a learning curve round here. This year they have forked madly. A brilliant tomato harvest as well. I don't think there can ever be too many tomatoes.

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    1. None frozen yet but some will be, CJ. I'll be cooking up some more tomato sauce later today. If the outdoor tomatoes hadn't fallen victim i blight we would have had a bumper harvest.

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  5. What a lovely feature to have inherited, and apple hedge! And I love the look of your peas. I've never grown late peas so might give it go next year. Thanks for the heads up

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    1. The apple hedge was one of the reasons that we took on this plot, Anon. The late sown peas didn't produce any filled out pods last year, it's more a case of just popping them in on the off chance that it may work out and this year it did!
      It seems rather unfriendly calling you Anon if you visit again and leave a comment would you just pop your first name at the end?

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  6. Beautiful harvests. Must say, I'm especially envious of those apples - we'll be picking some from a local orchard soon. And I like that No. 1 rule on eating plot fruit - words to live by :)

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    1. Actually it isn't just a rule that we have for allotment fruit, Margaret. We have always cut fruit in half since Martyn bit into a peach when we were on holiday once and found a whole nest of earwigs where the stone should have been. It wasn't a good experience certainly not one either of us wants to risk repeating.

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  7. Hi, in case you're unaware of this, pears never ripen on the tree. All pears should be picked when the first one falls off, and ripened in a cool, dry room. Good luck with them!

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    1. Thanks, Tracy no pears have fallen yet from the two pear trees. I forced that one off as it was sitting on the ground.

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  8. Wow, all those apples look so delicious! I have five baby apple trees and I plan on showing them your post to inspire them to grow ;) I've never seen or even heard of a cobnut. What do they taste like?

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    1. The cobnut tastes just like other hazelnuts, Julie. I hope that your apple trees take notice.

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  9. Amazing apples! I understand why you took the allotment on that basis, who could resist. And I'm with you on always cutting my fruit open, I've found a few too many critters residing inside. Another amazing varied harvest from your plot.

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    1. Thanks Michelle - this year our plums have been well populated :-(

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  10. Re the orange spots on the pear-tree leaves. I have this "European Pear Rust" too, and have been researching it. Apparently the fungus needs both pears and Junipers (!) to complete its lifecycle. I have been scratching my head to think if I have seen any Junipers near my house! I'm glad to see you have managed to grow some respectable Spring Onions this year, because I know you have had some problems with them in recent years.

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    1. I can't think of any junipers nearby either Mark. They are not what you would think of as allotment plants. Yes there was more joy over a few successful spring onions etc.

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  11. I see you have plenty of apples, Sue. Why do you want to identify the name of variety? They're tasty and juicy, that's OK!
    Your caulifloweris wonderful, I've never been able to grow such beauty.

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    1. Just to appease our curiosity, Nadezd. The cauliflowers went down a treat,

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  12. We have an unknown apple tree on our allotment. I think it is a Pippin variety as I found a label in the old shed when we took the plot on and could just make out the word Pippin

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    1. No labels left laying around for us, Margaret.

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  13. I really need to get my fruit sorted...hopefully this week although they haven't been as prolific this year although to be honest that's a bit if a godsend!! Glad you're still getting berries off your loch ness and that you're enjoying it...it's always worrying recommending something to somebody else on personal taste.

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    1. You're right that recommendations can be a worry, Tanya but you certainly did us a favour recommending Loch Ness.

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  14. How I love to visit your blog Sue, the abundance of crops, the diversity of plants, and these beautiful photos that make my mouth water :) I love it!

    According to apples, I don't have any apple tree yet, but my mom has one, old Lobo tree that my grandfather planted. We don't spray it, so fruits have lots of bugs inside and they tend to rot :(

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    1. I am glad that you enjoy the blog, Dewbery. Before long I think the harvests will start to dwindle and not be quite as colourful.

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  15. That's too bad that one row of potatoes was infected but at least the other varieties did much better. Your ears of corn look incredible, nice and big. And your tomatoes are doing really well even though it's late in the season.

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    1. That variety won't be planted again, Phuong, The tomatoes are about the usual time for us. We've had a good corn year.

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  16. Those are great looking harvests Sue! I'm no help on the apples. When we bought our place we has several trees and I never knew what kind of apples they were.

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    1. I suppose as long as they taste good we shouldn't worry too much.

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  17. You have a wonderful harvest, I can't I'D the apples, we have two invincible pears, it is s wonderful productive variety.

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    1. The Invincible has produced some huge pears, Brian.

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