Meet the existing orchard residents...

Having managed to download as much info from grandma as possible regarding the existing orchard trees, I thought it might be wise to note it all down whilst its fresh in my memory.

So starting from the far northwest corner and following the northern boundary hedge along, we have:

Blaisdon Plum

The Blaisdon plum - doesn't look up to much but actually is a good producer of far too many plums which are best for cooking, puddings, and makes fab jam (altho I prefer plums mixed with other fruit in jam rather than the pure beast, too sweet for me!)  This variety is from Blaisdon village in the Forest of Dean close by grandma's home village, so I suppose the young tree must have been given as a gift when they moved in, probably by Uncle Harold.
Next along the line is:

Pear Conference

This one does reasonably well I believe, the pears are quite small if i remember rightly but grandma always seemed to have a goodly stash.

Pear Unknown - but not Conference!
Time will have to tell if we can work out what variety this one is...

Now, back to the Northwest end to the start of the second row....

Plum Victoria

The baby of the orchard family - planted a few years ago to replace the much mourned fully mature and prolifically gorgeous Victoria that was lost in a storm.  Not that was indeed a tree of great fame and favour!  However this wee lady has a way to go yet, not helped I think by the fact that when purchased she did look to me like she was a trained baby for espalier or fan treatment.  Unfortunately grandma just plumbed her in and then let her bear fruit the first year - which she dutifully did rather too enthusiastically.  In fact her feeble little baby tree arms were laden, and grandma's greediness and missing no doubt the bountiful supply she used to receive from the old Victoria, she left all the plums on and of course the inevitable happened - practically all the branches snapped under the weight they were not mature enough to carry....It was very sad and extremely frustrating!!! So little baby Vicky needs some time and TLC and a watchful eye on the number of blossoms, and likely lots of thinning for the next few years while she muscles up a bit.

Next in line to baby Vicky is a gap - this winter's storms put paid to another old stalwart of the orchard, the cooking apple tree.  Fortunately the children's swing/climbing tree (poor thing) is a cooking apple too, and as its extremely large, I should not weep for I will not be short of more than enough cooking apples... So, an opportunity awaits...a gap in the orchard cries out for a new incumbent...but what should it be?

Next on from the gap is:

Golden gage - unknown variety

I confess to having favourites - this is my favourite!!! I could eat these all day every day...unfortunately so can the wasps which do tend to congregate around this tree when its in full flow.  They are so sweet and juicy they often split on the tree before they fall, so you have to check it regularly and carefully for ripe ones every day.  Hopefully the chickens in the orchard, when they arrive, will help tidy up any that fall so that we don't have wasps on the floor waiting to sting small bare feet this summer.

Last in the orchard line up is:

The 'new' apple - also a cooker

Again of unknown variety, but still quite a baby I think - altho as it's so short its much easier to harvest before they fall and bruise than the big swing tree cooker.

Just realised in my photographic mission that I have forgotten to photo the big swing tree cooker, and also the only eating apple tree, which is over the other side of the garden for some unfathomable reason...off to do so and back in a flash....

Hopefully now uploaded, this is the big swing tree, which is a cooking apple of unknown variety:

Big cooking apple tree

And lastly, the poor lonely little eating apple tree, all on its own on the far side of the garden...

Eating apple - allegedly a Cox

You can certainly see the prevailing wind direction that affects this one!

Well, there we have it, our preliminary tour of the orchard trees here at Windy Acre.  I'm very much looking forward to enjoying them in full blossom.  But i must also look up in my books when I'm supposed to grease band the trunks as I definitely remember grandma doing it, I presume to prevent grubs?

So much to do, so very little time!