Kitchen Garden Forum

We have a quince tree on our plot which this year had the largest number of quinces we have harvested since planting. I was really dsappointed when most of the fruit had bitter pit which was only evident when I peeled them.

I am assuming this year's weather conditions contributed to this - anyone else noticed the same problem?

Exactly the same here, I'm afraid. Bit disappointed

What's bitter pit?

I spent last night making quince jelly for the first time and it tastes good to me. I have another basket of quince to deal with and it looks OK, but now I'm not sure.

I picked these from a friend's orchard on Sunday, so they are a new one on me.

From what I've read older trees aren'r as susceptible so if you have baskets of fruit maybe it is a more established tree and the fruit will be OK. I'm guessing the better root system of an older tree helps.

The trees can't be that old, I can pick all the fruit by standing underneath, no need for a ladder or picker. Or are they naturally dwarf trees?

I looked on Google and it appears that a couple of them did have it, I just had no idea what it was so chucked one out and cut out a few bad bits. I didn't peel them to make the jelly, just cut them up, so I'll be extra careful with the second batch.

Chantal wrote:The trees can't be that old, I can pick all the fruit by standing underneath, no need for a ladder or picker. Or are they naturally dwarf trees?

I looked on Google and it appears that a couple of them did have it, I just had no idea what it was so chucked one out and cut out a few bad bits. I didn't peel them to make the jelly, just cut them up, so I'll be extra careful with the second batch.

Must admit I didn't notice the problem until I peeled the fruit - apparently bitter pit starts inside the fruit and works outwards.

I'm just going by the amount of fruit and by old I mean older than ours planted in 2010