The delicate branches of the youngest trees in the orchard are bending under the weight of apples.  Gardening wisdom says you should remove all but one or two fruit in the first year after planting but how many gardeners are really that wise?

 

The Sunset are just starting to colour but they won’t be ready for a few weeks yet
Ashmead’s Kernel is a good keeper – picked in October these will store well into the new year
The Bloody Ploughman shed most of its fruit so the few remaining are growing enormous
The same’s true of the two year old Cat’s Head tree – only six apples but what they lack in number they’re making up in size
The two year old Ribston Pippin has quite a few apples at a reasonable size – smooth and perfect so far
The older Michelmas Red tree lost all its fruit but the new one is laden with small, red apples

Click on any photo to view the gallery.

It’s the youngest trees that have the most fruit this year as they flowered later than the two and three year old trees. The first row of trees (mostly the same varieties as row three) were laden with blossom in the spring and set masses of fruit but after two weeks of cold, north-easterly winds they shed most of the fruit and concentrated on growth instead.

 

 

The pumpkins, squash and cucumbers which serve as summer ground cover in the orchard rows have been putting on a lot of growth too.  I can see lots of chutney making ahead.

The headline photo is Lane’s Prince Albert – a traditional cooking apple.