Hopefully a few jars of jam. But it will take some time before this cherry plum tree gives us the 10 bushels of cherry plums that the September 1886 Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardening reported had been picked in a year in our walled Garden! That would be 32 pecks or 80 gallons of fruit – that’s a lot of kilograms! The article explained that cherry plums were much valued for preserving, and that although apples had been a rather short crop that year, small fruits had been abundant and the gooseberries had yielded fruit of exhibition size. So there’s a challenge for us!
The walled garden is looking very smart with newly cut grass and lovely straight edges and at the far end of the pictured path is the old apple tree unique to the Gardens, which our members recently voted to name the Easton Countess on the official apple ID database. Long may she live!
Elsewhere volunteers gave the Italian Garden lilypond a lovely new coat of paint; used recently felled dead tree trunks for new edging for a flower border; continued the war against garlicky alliums; added a colourful mix of plants into the new Japanese walk; sorted and weeded the herb beds and much, much, more besides.
