June Update

The blossom has now all but disappeared from the fruit trees, the Medlars still sporting their large white flowers. The weather during the recent bank holiday was excellent for the bees to poliinate the later flowering varieties like Suntan, Orleans Reinette and D’arcy Spice. 

Now slowly it is possible to see fruit appearing within the clusters. We only need 5% of the flowers to actually set to provide a crop. So a lot of flowers are ‘wasted’.  The trees have held wet for the odd day, the wind has usually dried them off well after some recent rainfall. Some powdery mildew is showing on the Sturmer Pippin trees but the incidence of leaf scab is low.

The nights to date have been too chilly for much moth activity and just a couple of Plum maggot moth have been caught. No sign of the Apple Codlin of the Summer fruit tortrix yet.

Now sun, and hopefully, some warmer temperatures to go with it, are much needed. The season will not catch up now so everything, including the crops in the Dutch Light Structure, will be delayed . The Cobra round beans have just shown a first flower so 3 weeks to wait for them . Our raspberries will be expected during the first week of July. Onions are at last looking like onions. We have just begun pulling our first carrots and beetroot of the season.