Sunday 19 October 2014

Apples

In the allotment right now it is the apple season, with plenty of fruit coming from our minarette fruit trees.

These are the three varieties of apple that are grown. For each I have linked to a very informative website http://www.orangepippin.com/

On the left is Chivers Delight

At the front right is a Gala

At the rear right is a Falstaff


These particular varieties are in adjacent groups for fertilization purposes, the Gala and Chivers Delight being Group 4, the Falstaff being Group 3 (although self-fertile itself).

The Gala and Chivers Delight are too close together for comfort now and the lack of light, despite pruning and training, has meant some black spot fungus and downy mildew, particularly on the Chivers Delight. The latter is going to be moved across to the other side of the fruit area so that it is not suffering by being too close to the Gala and the nearby damson minarette tree.


The only thing that seems to be effective against Black Spot Fungus is Diphane-945, which isn't organic but unfortunately is the only spray that is suitable for dealing with this on fruit. It also, like such as Bordeaux Mixture (which is allowed under organic standards) is being phased out due to an EU regulation.....


Friday 10 October 2014

Autumn is here

Over the past week or so, the weather has turned properly autumnal. Lots of rain, and windy at times, but still warmth in the sunshine. There are still some really nice blackberries in the allotment, along with the autumn fruiting raspberries down the bottom of the plot. Picked what I presume will be the last of the mini and large sweetcorn, the kernels of the large one going into shepherd's pie at the weekend.

Couch grass is a problem, and a fari amount of time has been spent trying to get rid of it, first from the strawberry bed as this was replanted (still coming back though!) and now from around the fruit bushes and trees.

Can't wait until the first parsnips are ready, you could I suppose eat them now but I prefer to wait until they've had some frost, they do taste better - it is not a myth! Salsify is the new vegetable for this year, no idea whether it will taste good or not, but you can deep fry it as chips!

Still picking apples, varieties are Chiver's Delight, Gala, and Falstaff - all minarette varieties with the Gala ones being very late, in fact most of them are still not ripe yet. All the Chiver's Delight are picked, with about half of the Discovery so far. Pears are nearly all eaten - mostly Comice , with only two Conference this year.