Summer in the Weald…

…is three fine days and a thunderstorm (to paraphrase Charles II), although this time it’s been three fine weeks and a thunderstorm, which provided the latter doesn’t feature hailstones is altogether good news for our fruit.

Here’s Chris dodging the showers to do some summer pruning Cox in the Church orchard at Egerton. He’s cutting out this year’s woody growth to allow more light to reach the fruit and add colour to the skin and sugar to the flesh. It also has the added benefit of making winter pruning easier, but you have to be careful not to chop off bits which might carry next year’s fruit!

After a slow start due to the cold, gloom and hideously low soil temperatures, the recent heatwave and a bit of actual summer has energised the trees; the fruits are growing beautifully and whilst this doesn’t equate to anything approaching a bumper crop, what’s hanging on the trees is in rude health.

Persistent heat isn’t ideal for fruit trees – they go into shut-down mode during high temperatures, which obviously stops fruit growth. However, you still get activity either side of the temperature spike, so whilst it undeniably slows down growth in an already late year, it’s not completely disastrous.

Those growers across the region that benefited from the downpours are delighted – the Cox are motoring and the Bramley look great – and whilst things are undoubtedly positive, we’re still behind in the calendar, and looking at a start date of a week to ten days from now for picking Bramley and Discovery, with Early Windsor and Worcester not far behind.

We’re picking Opal plums in west Kent now for supermarkets, and the cherries are all but finished after what is widely thought to have been a successful, if late season.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 9th, 2013 at 2:47 pm and is filed under news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.