As I noted earlier in the year, we didn’t have a stellar summer. And the whole-season climate-integrating device confirms it:
The grapes this year went directly from hard and green to sad and wrinkled, never becoming edible at all.
The eating apples, on the other hand, have had a stellar year; how well they do is less dependent on the summer being warm and more dependent on whether the wretched sparrows decide to eat all the flower buds. As I previously noted, the Worcester Pearmains did a good job earlier in the Autumn — I took a big bag of them to hand round on the Geophysics field course. The other two trees have also done well:
These Blenheim Oranges are the best-tasting apples ever: imagine Braeburns turned up to 11. I really don’t understand why commercial growers waste orchard space on wooly, tasteless Pink Ladies and Royal Galas when they could be growing these. This pic was taken about a month ago; the apples have now mostly been eaten.
These Laxton’s Superb, on the other hand, are still on their tree in Christmas week and are just ready for eating. They really do keep well. They should keep us supplied with apples for another few weeks, after which it will be rather a disappointment to go back to buying apples from a shop.
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