Our plum and gage trees are laden with fruit - so much so that the heavy crops are bending branches.
It's been a great year for stone fruit crops, apparently, with commercial cherry growers reporting bumper harvests. We have a couple of cherry trees here, but I've yet to taste a ripe fruit from them – the birds always get there first. I know we should net the trees, but they're growing in such a difficult place it would be more trouble than it's worth.
Our plum and gage trees, however, are laden with fruit – so much so that the heavy crops are bending branches. Sadly, the quality of fruit is disappointing. Their flavour is poor due, I presume, to lack of sun (which they need to build up sugar content). They are also very watery. Interestingly, there has been almost no wasp damage on the fruit, proving that wasps are as fussy about their plums as I am!
We've also got a slight deer problem. While our trees are protected with anti-rabbit spirals, we have no protection against deer, which neatly nibble off any accessible branches. So I'm hard at work, suspending junk CDs from the tree branches. This tactic works well: light is bounched off the CDs during the day, warding off the deer. It even works on cloudless nights when the moon’s light is bright enough to be reflected.
But the sun's back out again in Hampshire, so I'm hoping my plums and gages are sweetening up nicely. I'm not alone in this though – I can sense the wasps lining up, ready to pounce. I have my work cut out getting a decent crop!
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