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I was rather disappointed that so few apples had set on our trees this year, but the nice chap on the plot next-door-but-one to mine says he's had none at all and no pears either, so perhaps we've done better than I thought.

Anyway, we had our first apple of the year yesterday a Devonshire Quarrenden.

It had fallen from the tree when I found it, so it can be excused for being a little mushy, but the flavour was good - sharp but not overly so, and a touch perfumy. There are two more still on the tree, so hopefully those will be even better.

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It's been a rubbish year for gardeners, hasn't it? I'm glad you did get an apple though.

It really has.

I mean, I like rain as much as the next gardener, but this year has just been silly in that regard.

At least the runner beans are producing something like normally - I froze four portions of them yesterday because we can't eat them fast enough :) Fresh is better than frozen of course, but frozen is better than wasted and this way we'll still have some when the fresh ones are finished. The brassicas seem to be finally getting their act together a bit too.

It's not going to be too good a year for our fruit either :-(

The Williams has only four or five small fruit on it, the Cox very few too. The Bramley has quite a lot of small apples on it, but I doubt they'll come to much. There are hardly any Victoria plums, and the Conference has but a few scrawny offerings. The Comice is pretty sparse too.

I only hope we get a few blackberries!

Sorry to hear that - looks as though my little trees have done fairly well, all things considered then.

I did pick some blackberries too yesterday, enough for a small crumble for tea. Not as many as if they hadn't cut back the brambles at the back, but still. All they seem to have achieves with that is to destroy this year's fruit crop - the branches are back as thick as ever, just without blossom. Silly hooters should have taken out the roots if they were serious about it.

How cool to be eating a variety of apple that's been grown in England since 1676! That's nearly 200 years before Canada became Canada. (1867) King Charles II may have eaten one of those apples....I envy you the history of living in an old country.

And the thought of a perfumy apple is lovely. We get most of our apples from California and they're so scientifically bred that there's almost no aroma.

I envy you the history of living in an old country.

:) We had a visitor from the US once when we were living in Bishops Lydeard in Somerset. We took him to the pub in the village. I can't remember exactly how old it is now, but he walked in, looked around in wonder and said "This pub is older than my country!"

Most things here are older than their country ;-p

We've had no pears (usually get 4-6 on our small trees), three apples (usually get a couple of buckets), four (!) cherries (from two trees, usually giving at least 5 litres), and, I think, two plums.

Not a good year for fruit, no.

Sorry to hear your trees have been yielding poorly too :(

At least the runner beans are cropping normally! :)

It's no direct loss for me personally, as I'm allergic to all those fruits, but I feel sorry for the kids, and the friend whose horses usually get the apples that are left over.

On the other hand, the fern has been happy this year. :-)

Fruit allergy is - excuse the pun - the pits. I discovered Oral Allergy Syndrome a few months back, and gleefully noted that it's not just me. Moreover, I can haz a Syndrome. Doesn't make it any the more pleasant though :(

Hey, lookitthat! Syndrome, I can haz too!

Thanks, I didn't know that. May have to experiment some come winter.

I didn't know about the syndrome until recently. When I was tested for allergies in my teens neither my mother nor the testing hospital believed me when I asked to be tested for apples. [It did strike me as odd that something one (according to them) couldn't be allergic to was nonetheless amongst their vials of stuff..] Anyway, they humoured me - nice of them - and stuck some apple into my arm. "Go and sit out there for about twenty minutes and we'll call you back in"

I 'went and sat out there' for about five minutes. By then, my arm was hard and swollen, and very painful. Breathing started to get difficult, and I was called back into the room pretty damn' smartish. "Oh dearie me, you seem to be allergic to apples!" No shit, Sherlock.

As the years have gone by I've discovered more and more things that cause itchy throat and ears (eustachian tube I suppose), and even things that I can't touch, like raw parsnips. Bah.

A few months back a friend directed me to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_allergy_syndrome

I now know that it's not 'just me', and it's become a recognised phenomenenon. Yay. It's good to be able to point people to it so I can say I'm not making it up, look, I've got a known thingummy - but I'm much rather someone came up with a cure.. *Sigh*

Fruit from one's own garden (or possibly the neighbour's) is best! :-) We've had a lot of red currants this year (as we do every year) and that's about the only edible thing our garden produces, so I can't complain. I hope your few apples make up for the quantity in quality.

Thanks! It was a very nice apple and there are a few more on that tree and a couple of the others, so we haven't done too badly, I think :)

The runner beans are doing well, at least .

Did the cheesegrater show up again? I found a spare one I didn't know I had. Want it? Good for apple sauce too ;-)

No, still no sign of it, even though I've been tidying the kitchen all week!

That's jolly kind of you, but I'm sure I can find one here easily enough :)

Good for apple sauce too ;-)

That's interesting - we like our apple sauce fairly chunky, so i just chop the apples a bit - I've never thought of grating them!

I have raspberries, strawberries & blueberries in my garden. For reasons of weather and the limpics, I didn't pick most of the raspberries and I had about 3 strawberries. I got quite a few blueberries, but so did the birdies!

There's a cherry tree on the verge outside my house, but I never saw much fruit on that at all this year. Normally the birds eat them and leave a carpet of stones on the pavement, but I haven't even seen much evidence of avian nomming.

Seems to have been a rubbish year for fruit nearly everywhere by the sound of it. Bah!

Wrong type of weather!

isn't it aways? :) Just more so than usual this year!

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