Now that the horse dung is down, we covered the area around the fruit trees with wood chip. It had been moved around, and was partially rotted, so not the best for weed suppression, but better than dung and soil. It’ll need another good covering with fresh wood chip for next year.
While training one of the branches on the damson, I must have pulled too hard and the branch started to split at it’s base. I’ve bound it up – time will tell if the branch will survive. Unfortunately the branch is an important one – one of two that are nearly vertical and form the main trunk of the tree. Fingers crossed.
The fruit trees seem to be doing OK, though no sign of any fruit this year.
Apple buds on the old apple tree.
The Ben lomond currant seems to be doing well, though it looks like most of the flowers succumbed to the strong winds recently. Still, we weren’t expecting much fruit from the currants this year. Big Ben doesn’t seem to be doing so well – it was really stripped by the deer. However, there are signs of new shoots from the base, so hopefully it will still be able to get in a good year’s growth.
The best of all, is a flowering currant which had self seeded in an overgrown gutter – now we just need to decide where to plant it.
Progress from the apple trees…
Before we could get everything protected, the deer returned and stripped most of the leaves from the blackcurrant bushes. At least now everything is protected.
Deer protection in place
Somewhat on a whim, we decided to buy a couple of blackcurrant bushes to go in the ‘soft fruit’ area in front of the apple trees.
We decided on two varieties, Big Ben, a relatively new variety with very large berries, and Ben Lomond, a classic variety with good frost resistance and good yields. Hopefully we will get at least a few currants this year.
