Fruit

We have a lot of fruit bushes and trees on our wee plot - Gooseberries (two kinds), Raspberries (two kinds) Redcurrants, White currants, Blackberries, an Apple tree and a Cherry tree. I wish I could give names for them all but apart from the blackberry bush and the trees we bought everything cheap and cheerfully at Poundstretcher or whatever they call themselves these days.

Gooseberries
We have a green variety, which I know has to be cooked before eating if you don't want a sore tummy. There was one on it but a blasted bird got it, though why I would want to cook 1 berry and cut it up so Andrew and I could taste it is beyond me!
We also have a purple variety, very pretty and can be eaten straight from the bush. We got 3, Andrew knocked 2 off, so we ended up watching one single purple berry slowly mature. When it looked super purple we picked it, cut it in half and ate it. We like to share. It was lovely. Let's hope for a few more next year!

Raspberries
There's a Summer one and an Autumn one. We got the summer one at the start of May and fair play to it, it didn't do anything for us this year. In fact I thought it was going to die, but now it's perked up and there's hope for next year.
The Autumn one has berries starting. I haven't counted but I think there are about 4, maybe 5. We have a home made bird scarer over the plant, so fingers crossed.

Redcurrants and Whitecurrants
To be perfectly honest I had forgotten we had these until I started to write this wee blogette. They mustn't be doing much but equally I haven't heard Andrew moan about them dying or looking bedraggled, so infer from that that they're okay, wherever they are (note to self: pay more attention to fruit bushes).

Blackberry
Ah, the power of a sales display; makes you want something you already have, in abundance. For instance, our blackberry - the field we are in is surrounded by blackberries, or as I prefer to call them - Brambleberries. There were kids picking them, bags of them, with their mum a couple of days ago and I would have the odd one on the dander over to the loo. But we have one in our plot too. The more the merrier? I like to think that ours taste better, 'Oregon Thornless' ,and the 4 berries which we got off it (2 each) were particularly delicious. Waste of money? No!!

Apple Tree
This is rather cool. You need 2 apple trees to produce fruit, right? Well we have 2 trees on the one tree, if that makes sense. The bottom is 'Elstar' and grafted on top is 'James Grieves', both yellowy-red varieties. There are apples on it and they are plumping up well. I just hope they are nicer than the one Andrew ate last week. It was a James I think and it was horrible! Fair play to him though, as a matter of principle he ate the thing, I had a lick and felt that was enough.

Cherry Tree
It seems we are breaking new ground with our Cherry tree 'Stella'. We are attempting to fan train it! This caused excitement at the nursery (Sunnybank) as such a thing is ODD in the gardening world, fanning a cherry wasn't in any of the books or indeed in the brains of the people who work there. Espaliers and cordons galore - but fanning, well! We shall see how she does, she hasn't kicked the bucket yet.....

Okay, so I've learnt that that was all wrong. The excitement and concern came from the fact that the tree was established and it was a funny time of the year to be pruning, especially when that meant taking half the bloomin' tree off the top. Fanning a cherry is as common as muck - my world has deflated.

We hope to add to this nice array with a plum and and pear or so, in time.