This weekend we plucked our first two apples from our trees! A granny smith and a jonathon. We planted very young trees bare rooted last winter and were so pleased and surprised to see them fruiting this year. We lost a few to coddling moth and only have a handful left on the tree, but hope to one day be able to harvest enough for an apple a day :)
This area was once the land of a fruit orchard well over a century ago but sadly the last owners of this cottage hadn't planted anything edible at all. We planted 15 more fruit trees in Spring - all bare rooted and very young - so hopefully in a few years to come we'll be able to have lots of our own fruit.
Astrid was watching us from her new favourite resting spot, the wine barrel that the young almond tree is planted in! She seems quite at home there surveying her little roostdom. She hopped down and came to see what we were up to.
Here are my lovely girls pecking about in the sunshine. I'll edit this post later with the photo I took today. Phone crashed taking the chook pic with it!! They are so funny, they streak across the grass at any given moment, hoicking up their skirts as they run, then suddenly stop as if nothing had happened at all and go back to nonchalantly pecking at a bug here and a grass seed there. They have been playing chasey a lot lately just for the sheer fun of startling each other.
Oh! Our tiny olive tree has given us so much fruit and I think are nearly ready for picking and pickling :)
I am loving your chooks! They are so adorable. I wish we could free range ours again but with a spate of foxings, our remaining chickens are just to precious to us. Your garden is looking quite lovely as well! Next year your fruit trees should put on quite a fruiting show
ReplyDeleteAwwwww thanks Daffodil!! We are lucky no foxes here during the day but do lock them in at night. I adore them! They are such funny creatures :)
ReplyDeleteHope our trees will fruit next year but they are very young still.
Sigh...our apple trees haven't fared as well. We planted a few dwarf pink ladies, hybrid for temperate climates, but they've become quite bug-infested. Will have to rethink our strategy for next year! So encouraging to see your lovely fruit, even if it's only a few apples!
ReplyDelete