A glut of Gooseberries

This year has been really successful for soft fruit.  Despite that frosty spell we had in May all the soft fruit seems to have done really well.  This is partly because the fruit bushes are starting to get more mature.  Larger bushes = more fruit.

The first lot of raspberries in the fruit garden, which I’m starting to call the fruit jungle, were ripening over a week ago.  They took me by surprise when I went to put some weeds on the compost heap in there.  I have picked two batches of raspberries.  On the 14th July, picking all the ripe fruit in the fruit jungle and the front garden, I picked 10oz of good quality raspberries and 2lb 4oz of less cosmetically perfect fruit for jam.  Three days later on the 17th July again I picked all the ripe raspberry fruit, achieving 6oz perfect fruit, and 2lb 3oz jamming fruit.  A small punnet of redcurrants from the tea garden, cooked separately and sieved into the raspberry pulp, gave a soft but satisfactory set to the raspberry jam.  Raspberries are rather low in pectin, so they need more adding to get a good set.  I have used apples in the past, but it is quite satisfying to use my own fruit.  Raspberry jam is one of my favourites, but two batches would see us through the year nicely.  Unfortunately rather a lot of the jar lids have not sealed properly, so the jam will have to be eaten sooner rather than stored.  This means I may have to make another batch of jam so that we have enough to last.

Raspberries in fruit jungle

I have several other raspberries varieties which are still establishing – Glen Prosen in the dog resistant garden, Malling Jewel and Autumn Bliss in the tea garden. and an unknown from AC on the hump overlooking the orchard and leach field.  I am also thinking that the leach field may be a good place to plant another patch of raspberries.  They are shallow rooting, and the spot is very sheltered in between the hump and the orchard.

Bumper Gooseberries

The gooseberries have had the best crop this year that I have ever seen.  From the three bushes in the dog resistant garden I picked 4 1/2 lb, 5lb 4oz, and 2 1/2 lb.  Some of the fruit was a little hard still, but some had already fallen from the bushes as overripe.  This variety is Invicta, which is supposed to be more mildew resistant.  I don’t know about that.  The bush is not too prickly, and the fruit is pale green, large and slightly hairy, going very slightly on the pink side of yellow when super ripe.  It is sweet enough to eat straight from the bush when really ripe.  I picked them all over – topping and tailing them with my fingers, and selecting the larger, nicer looking fruit to sell.  The rest I bagged up and put in the freezer in the short term.  I’m hoping to make chutney  with those.  Locally not everyone has done so well, with problems such as mildew and sawfly really affecting crops, so I feel very lucky this year.

There are two more Invicta gooseberry bushes in the fruit jungle, only one of which is fruiting well.  These still want a bit more ripening, which is odd, since I thought they get more sun there than in the dog resistant garden.  I have a different variety, Pax, in the tea garden.  It is a red variety, but suffered from wind there, is rather lop sided, and does not have enough growth yet to produce a good crop.

Redcurrant Cherry

There are still more redcurrants ripening on the bush that I was picking in the tea garden, as well as on an adjacent bush which has fruit that are just starting to turn colour. I may puree and freeze some to use as pectin additive, and I quite fancy some redcurrant jelly as well.  I think the one I have been picking is Cherry and the one yet to ripen is Rovada.  The varieties were selected to give a spread in the harvest.

The main Ben Sarek bushes with accompanying parseley

The blackcurrants I finally got round to picking this week.  I now officially have more blackcurrants than I use myself.  I picked about 9 lb of my Ben Sarek blackcurrants this week when the weather was lovely and warm (we never got the horrid hot weather they had further south – just low 20s with a nice breeze).  There would have been far more to pick, but I left it rather late, so many had fallen off the bushes or gone soft.  The main crop is in the fruit jungle, however I have been planting cuttings in the orchard and further down the tree field, and some of these are now also starting to fruit well.  The other varieties in the tea garden (Ben Gairn and Byelorussian Sweet) are also ripe, so could do with picking now too.

Blackcurrant planted in tree field (recently mulched)

 

Season of soft fruitfulness

Ben Gairn blackcurrants ripening

Summer is, as yet, the fruit season for me.  The orchard is a dream for the future; not a single apple this year, despite the good weather.  I have been picking currants and raspberries however over the past couple of weeks.  The original Ben Sarek black currants did pretty well, over 13 pounds in total.  Not up to their usual quality however: quite a few split, and smaller than usual.  It’s been a slightly odd year due to a relatively hot and dry early summer, and I think this affected the berries.  Maybe the skins hardened too soon, since the Ben Gairn currant, which had a really good crop, had a lot split, which made the picking over quite difficult.  I like to remove the remains of the petals as well as the stalks, but it was a slow messy job.  I’ve made two batches of jam and still have some in the freezer.  The Belorussian sweet currant  I didn’t even bother picking.  The fruit was the first to ripen, but was really tiny and split. Hopefully in a more normal summer it will do better.  So far the Ben Sarek wins hands down.  It’s only the first year for the other two to fruit properly however, so we’ll see how they do next year.  The black currant bushes in the front garden didn’t have many berries.  I haven’t been pruning them, and they are getting a bit leggy.  I’ll try and make a point of pruning them hard this year.  The cuttings in the fruit garden are now quite productive bushes.  I’ve decided that the other currant next to the original Ben Sarek black currant bush must be what my friend calls the ‘nancyberry’.  It grew as a seedling in my garden in Solihull (originally between the paving stones of the path as they do!), I think it is a blackcurrant-gooseberry cross.  There it had lovely large sweet berries, but here it sets hardly any.  I have been gradually removing the bushes again, since they obviously don’t like Skye.  By removing this last bush it will give me a suitable space for my Charlotte Russe mulberry bush.  That was a present from my Mum when she came up this spring.  I am quite excited about this.  The garden is still pretty exposed, but I’m hopeful that the fruit garden is starting to get a bit more sheltered.

Not so much fruit garden as raspberry jungle!

The raspberries looked really promising, but the initial picking was a  bit disappointing.  I had a awful lot that were wormy.  I have had this to a certain extent in previous years, but probably more than half were wormy to some extent.  I’m not one to be too fussy about a few insects, but this was ridiculous!  It’s been a bit damp to pick the berries this last week.  The second picking was a bit better than the first: not so many ripe ones, but fewer with worm problems.  I’ve made a big batch of strawberry and raspberry jam (strawberries from the shop as yet, although I now have some plants getting established so watch this space!).  I have about four different sorts of summer raspberries, I was given a load of canes of an unknown variety from someone locally.  They fruit well, but have been worst affected by the worms and have a slightly watery taste.  I have  another which does pretty well, some of the berries have a tendency to be slightly double, but good cosmetic quality generally.  Malling Jewel is in the tea garden, struggling in a still rather exposed position.  One that came with the house: Glen Prosen, which is starting to do quite well in the dog resistant garden but took a long while to get established,  this is the best tasting fresh I think.  I’ve found that neither of the autumn fruiting raspberries do very well in our short summers.  They are too late getting started in the spring to flower in time before the weather gets colder and the days shorter.

White Himalayan strawberry fruit

Talking of strawberries, just a note on the himalayan strawberries in the tea garden.  It looks like getting some other plants from different sources was the right thing to do, since despite being set back by my weeding at a time of hot dry weather a few fruit did set.  Unexpectedly they have turned out to be white.  They are like large alpine strawberries, difficult to remove from the stem, with a pleasant citrussy resinous flavour when fully ripe.  They become very soft, so easy to crush.  Hopefully they will fruit better next year if I can avoid digging them up at the wrong time!  They do seem to make a very dense ground cover, which was their primary purpose.

Haskap: dense fruiting in first year

I’ve now picked the last of the Haskap/honeyberries.  It is impossible to tell whether they are ripe or not, until you bite into them.  When ripe, they have a quite plummy sweet/sour flavour and are coloured right through.  Before fully ripe they are sharper and less pleasant.  I’m very pleased with how well they fruited, considering this is their first year.  I’m pretty sure they will make a rather nice jam when I get a few more fruit.  They should be pruned by removing about a quarter of the mature branches to avoid overcrowding and should live for decades.  I need to try and not let them get taken over by weeds in the orchard area.  So far they are a successful experiment I think.  I’ve saved a few seeds so I can try to propagate them, they should germinate well when fresh, so I may try sowing some straight away.  They also propagate by cuttings, better from summer cuttings apparently, but I may try some of the prunings this winter since that is easier for me.

I’ve not harvested the grapes in the tunnel, but have thoroughly thinned them out.  I don’t think I thinned them enough last year, so I have been a bit more brutal this year.  I collected the thinnings as much as possible, and had enough to make a small batch of green grape jelly.  I had contemplated making verjuice, but I may try that next year.  The new vine (a white, Zalagyongye, which for some reason I thought would be seedless but apparently isn’t) has just one bunch of grapes, but they are not so far along as the Boskoop glory, so I’m not sure whether they will ripen off.  The vine is growing well, so I’m hoping that it will do better next year.

I still have redcurrants and gooseberries to harvest.  The invicta has done quite well.  The new red gooseberries, Pax, have mostly dropped, and are rather small.  I have two new red currants in the tea garden: redcurrant cherry and rovada.  I don’t think any of the redcurrants from Solihull survived, but I have a couple of small plants in the fruit garden.  These were grown from cuttings taken from a tough little plant growing in a dry stone wall in full force of the sea winds.  I’d like to take cuttings from a plant I pass going to the shop which blooms profusely, but the berries seem to either nor set or quickly get picked by birds.  It is such a dwarfed plant that finding a decent bit of stem will be difficult.

Blackberry Helen fruiting well before the fly strike!

The blackberry in the polytunnel is just starting to ripen, as is the new one ‘Helen’ outdoors.  It looks like this may be a disappointment, as I have yet to try the berries!  They are quite prolific and large but seem to be very attractive to blue flies which destroy the drops and make them discoloured and unappetising!  It may be they are ripening too slowly due to the damp weather this week and may do better in drier weather.  They certainly have been early, but I am at a bit of a loss about what to do about this.  It looks like I will have to move the vine pretty soon anyway, since we are intending to extend the barn to where this is currently planted now.  Maybe I should try it in the polytunnel?  But that wasn’t the point!