Food

It seems a long time since I last aired the subject of food on this blog and perhaps now is the time to put that right. I spent time yesterday afternoon in the garden, cutting the long grass under the trees in our orchard. That sounds pretty grand, doesn't it? But I should explain that our "orchard" consists of just two trees, one plum and one pear. We do have other fruit trees, but they are scattered around the garden so don't count as part of the orchard. The plum tree - the one in the orchard that is (we have two) - had as much blossom on it this year as I can remember ever having seen and, fortunately, we had no late frosts to prevent the fruit from setting. As you can see from the picture, the plums now look almost like bunches of grapes and I rather think I will need to thin them out.


Although they are not Victoria plums, they do have a very good flavour and are excellent for freezing. The main problem is that in the last few years they have contracted a mould of some sort which has substantially reduced the crop. This year I have bought a spray and am religiously spraying the tree once a week in the hope of eradicating the problem.

Watch this space!