Planted daffodils in the orchard under the tress. Used Irish Luck and Mount Hood. The ground was so hard and dry in places that it took some doing and I am still unsure whether the ones under the cherry tree in particular are deep enough. After watering them in I mulched heavily with grass clippings to hopefully deter the rabbits from digging.

The sloes at the end of the garden are so huge I am wondering if they are not sloes at all? If they are then I’m making gin this year.

They are not sloes! Looked them up on the web and the fact that the fruits have stalks so that they hang, rather than forming close to the twigs means that they are wild plums. That makes much more sense as picked you can actually eat them as you would a plum. Now what do do with them- they are far too small and fiddly to use in cooking.

So many sloes in the hedgerow at the side of the open garden and also in the woods at the end. Looks like a good year to make sloe gin, after they have been sweetened by the first frosts..

There are at least 6 pear trees in the orchard. Two are early William’s style Bartlett pears, a couple appear to be Comice and perhaps another two are conference. What to do with so many pears after such a good harvest? The early Williams pears are all coming ripe at once ( about now having been picked last week) and I will need to preserve or juice them I think

We had plums this year at the end of August but they were over all too soon and many rotted on the tree because they were on branches too high to pick on our very old tree. If I plant any new trees I will plant plum trees, we so enjoyed the ones we had.

The vegetable garden is at last looking as it should have been looking 6 weeks ago. The persistent rat problem put everything back many weeks as I had to resow many crops once I had secured the perimeter!! Anyway, it is going well now and I even get the odd bean and tomato. The runner beans are not cropping well- probably too late and not enough water. This winter I plan to get the overhanging birch tree removed which will have a good effect on the beds furthest from the house.

The first apples from the orchard have been cropping for the last couple of weeks. After extensive research I believe that they are Norfolk Royal “a mid season dessert apple developed in Norfolk in the 1920s.” I suspect they were planted here as they are quite resistant to cold and the tree certainly seems to be happy and growing well.

The apples are quite large and juicy and we have made about 3-4 litres of juice with them so far. They are also good for eating but go off quickly like all early apples. I have also made two apple cakes which went down well.

I plan to identify all the apple types I have in the orchard and also the pears. One type of pear ( probably Williams) is ready to pick now although not fully ripe yet.

The William’s pears were all ripe within a week and too soft 2 days later so the window of opportunity is small.

Norfolk Royal all picked and none left on the tree and the ones that are stored will only be good for another week or so.