Kitchen Garden Forum

Last year many of us were complaining about the sparseness of plums and damsons. My Marjorie's Seedling had had only two flowers and my Golden Gage none (but then it had never flowered at all in its first seven years).

What a difference this year! The Gage has celebrated its first ever flowering by being a mass of white and the MS has almost as many flowers as the sloes around here. The sloes I have never seen with such a mass of blossom; so much you can't see the branches.

Let's hope the pollinating insects have been doing their job - I haven't seen as many as I would like, but fingers crossed.

Morning Alan, the blossom is spectacular here too, lets hope for no severe late frosts.
And then there will be the problem of the branches breaking under the weight of the fruit and letting in the Silver leaf virus.
Then there's the wasps and...........

..and the Woody Pigeons that strip the potential fruit just after set. ...that was the story with my greengage last year.!!

Likewise, plenty of blossom on the trees at work...including Thames Cross for the first time in abundance....and on Reine Claude Greengage and Marjories Seedling at home here..but not much on the Victoria for some reason.
Not so many wild Bees about at home but at work we seem to see every sort imaginable...but currently though have only 2 hives of Honey Bees on the go..instead of usual 3 or 4...

Clive.

Do you think it's going to be an exceptional year for fruit? The ancient apple tree we inherited on our allotment bore hardly any blossom or fruit last year, but at the moment, it is has so many buds, just beginning to burst and looks beautiful. I've no idea what variety it is, other than it's a "cooker", but not Bramley. The Currants and Gooseberries are groaning with flowers too and I have just discovered the first aphids on them....duly squashed!

I just love fruit blossom, it really does give you hope of things that maybe.

I'm with you, OH, and keeping everything crossed for no nasty cold surprises like last year - that late frost wiped out most of everything except the apples.
Most of my fruit trees this year look as though they have snow on them, though, with the amount of blossom - a glorious sight indeed! I wonder if it's partly due to all the energy they saved last year by not producing?
Vivien

The blossom is beautiful this year, and I had a look at the plum trees to see how many bees were on them. There were only 15 honey bees and 12 bumble bees on four trees. Lets hope they are busy bees and manage to pollinate plenty of flowers.

My fruit trees look so beautiful woth all the blossom on them, and all the fruit bushes have set a lot of fruit too. All over the city there is cherry and apple blossom to see and it really does lift the spirits

Mind you, my pear tree seems to have developed a problem, but will post in the appropriate place about that

Ours are looking promising too. We were late in pruning the fruit trees and it seems to have paid off because we haven't had any problems with late frosts, like we did last year.

Last year our apples went mental, but we had no other tree fruit to speak of (2007, I had over 30lbs of damsons form a puny 7ft tree) This year everything except the apples is absolutely smothered in blossom. Lots of pears and damsons have set, but we will only have a few apples.
Swings and roundabouts!

Waiting to see if the plums have set. Plenty of apples here again this year.

I am afraid I was correct about the Wood Pigeons..

Clive...

....But...I did dig..well, tip out some Potatoes this morning to send to the Big House. Premiere planted in pots on 27/1...

A few days later trying them than last year (15/4?)..and I could only afford a 50p this year for the photo




Clive.

Dear Clive, i bet they will be eaten and enjoyed.

Our plum and gage trees have been beautiful too. The first year that the gages have really done much so here's hoping.

It's sad when the blossom falls but if it has left min fruits behind I will quickly cheer up!