I don’t normally write about our apple trees (apart from the fight to stop magpies and squirrels eating them) but this is something new to me and shows how the weather has been somewhat strange this year.
As you can see our apples have split. We have (what I think is) a Discovery Apple tree which (when not attacked by the squirrels) produces a wonderful crop of apples from the end of August through until November. They’re tasty and when ripe the flesh is red. (The tree has a “sunny side” and a “shaded side” and the sunny side produces an early crop and the shaded side a later crop).Normally more apples than we can eat raw but they cook and dry well so our puddings are decided for two months and more and drying them gives me something to eat with my cereal in the morning and instead of snacking on crisps. However, this year (for the first time and the tree is 25 years old) they’ve split. The problem (apparently) is uneven watering. There’s nothing I can do about it (the suggestion seems to be to lay a thick layer of mulch but that hardly works in a lawn). I’ll look out for it in future years.
This year has been a good year, the fruit has ripened well and we’ve had a wonderful crop of acorns on our oak tree which has tempted the squirrels away from the apples. However, as you can see, they cropped early and the rain in late September and early October has reduced the crop,