It hardly seems as though we’ve had summer yet, but looking at our apple trees, it suddenly struck me that the season is coming to a close. Perhaps their progress is ahead of schedule this year (although I don’t know why that would be with all the cool weather we’ve had, and the slow start to the growing season). These are apples on ‘James Grieve’, a lovely eating apple that can also be used in cooking. Sadly, it doesn’t store…

The tree is laden with fruit. I did some thinning earlier in the “summer”, but conservatively – I don’t like to take off too many because the trees will lose fruit in the ‘June drop’ and again in the ‘pre-harvest drop’, and if you’re not careful, you can end up with too little. Apples have been falling every day – exacerbated by the windy weather. All have been attacked by pests, and tend to have rotten patches and contain grubs (and sometimes an earwig will crawl out of a hole!) The grubs are, I think, larvae of the codling moth.

Looking at the apples that are still on the tree, most seem to have some sort of insect damage. I really must take more care to put grease bands on the trunks in good time next year (although the pests seem to find their way to the fruit anyway). The windfalls are fine, but we’ve had to cut them up, and use them quickly before the rot spreads, which is difficult because there are so many of them.

We have two apple trees. The other – ‘Worcester Pearmain’ has less fruit, but they’re a good size – last year it produced a crop of under-sized apples. This variety keeps much better – if we can find some that are undamaged.

The pears aren’t so good. ‘Packham’s Triumph’ isn’t living up to its name, having no fruit this year. ‘Concorde’ is better, but not exactly laden down. Although they are supposed to be in the same flowering group, there wasn’t much of an overlap, which could explain why fruit set was patchy. Touch wood, the pears don’t seem to suffer anything like as much damage from pests as apples; the one exception being wasps (of the social, yellow jacket kind) but so far, there have been very few of these this year.

Of the six trees in our mini orchard, it’s the damson that has grown the most, and this year it’s got quite a few damsons, which are ripening well. We’ve tried a few windfalls, and they were surprisingly sweet, but we’ll probably try our hands at making jam (a first!) with most of the crop.

The summer raspberries are in their first year (the first set of canes we planted didn’t take) but we’ve had some fruit from them.

The autumn raspberries have been a continuing trauma. Once again they put on impressive growth, but only one cane is producing fruit. The yellow berries are very tasty, but it’s a meagre crop for a whole, lush row of raspberry canes. At the end of the season I’ll thin the canes out a bit more, but leave some to see if they produce fruit early – alongside the summer ones. They should also produce new canes for autumn fruiting. This is known as double-cropping (thanks to Cathy at Rambling in the garden, who does this successfully and has been advising me). I wonder if my soil is short of potassium, which promotes flower growth? Wood ash is touted as a good source of potassium, so I may have to get the wood stove going this winter to provide a supply for next year.

The veg patch has given us a better crop of peas than in previous years, which we’ve tended to have raw in salads (there haven’t really been enough for main meals).

Broad beans have been similar. Both are coming to and end now.

The runner beans have been very slow again this year; it’s only now that they’re beginning to produce a regular crop from what is now a lush wigwam of plants.

While butterflies have been in short supply this year, there’s been no shortage of earwigs, which I suspect have been responsible for eating the flowers on the runner beans, and delaying the crop. I try to tolerate wildlife where I can, such as this caterpillar of a vapourer moth on the plum tree.

The fruit and veg may be telling us the season’s coming to a close, but the garden has more to give before autumn sets in. Asters grow well in our garden, and spread well too, so we have plenty of them. They’re close to flowering, and should put on a good show.

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ has this year achieved something like its full size, with lots of large flower heads which will persist and look good (as they dry) well into winter. Hydrangeas are known to like plenty of moisture. The paniculata varieties are more drought tolerant, though as you can see from this photo, the leaves are somewhat droopy – we really do need some rain now.

Hesperantha (formerly Schyzostylis) is a tough plant that has spread freely around the pond. It’s a late flowerer, and is doing its thing now. In the background is a purple Lobelia x. speciosa ‘Tania’. Unlike the more popular Lobelia cardinalis ‘Queen Victoria’, which I’ve not managed to get through a winter, this one is in its third year.

And the Japanese anemones are in full bloom now. This is A. ‘Honorine Jobert’ against a dark backdrop of Actaea ‘Brunette’ (which is readying its fragrant white flower spikes as I write) in the white border…

Summer will soon be drawing to a close. It seems particularly unfair that while so far it’s been largely cool and cloudy, we’re in the middle of another drought. Maybe there’ll be some more warmth and sunshine (as well as rain!) to come before autumn. We live in hope. Actually we don’t – Hope is a small town in Derbyshire – but you know what I mean…

text & images © graham wright 2024