Catalogue

Blossoming Pears

Lynsey Payne Appletree Happenings, Appletree Research, Cooking Apples, Dessert Apples, Fruit Press, Pears, Uncategorized

Its that time of year again when we all get anxious about whether there will be a fruit crop this year. I love the pear flowers when they are just opening and the anthers are bright red, and wow what a quantity of them on Jargonelle, Beurre Hardy and Christie in my garden!  After a good number of frosts last week, we now have bright sunny bee flying days with warm nights so all is good?  What can go wrong? After all we only need a small quantity of these blossoms to get pollinated in order to get a good crop. Go on, count the flowers and imagine the weight of fruit if they all turned to a full crop. The trees would collapse!

I used to bank on April 23rd as the first apple flower day, but this year again it is early.. my Arbroath Oslin and James Grieve have opened a few flowers a few days early. No need to run around with a rabbit’s tail this year as i have seen many earnestly working bees today. Keep up the good work girls!

Pear Stamens

 

Plants for Beer

Lynsey Payne Appletree Places, Cider & Ale, Fruit Trees, Uncategorized

We have just spent a mini-break in Copenhagen, and as usual landed up in a botanic garden!

 

It’s a lovely walk up from the city centre through pleached crab apple hedges and on to a  park containing some lovely specimens of  Cornelian cherries. This tree bears edible fruit, many of which were on the floor, though they are reputedly rather astringent, and also used from Greece to Russia for distilling or for making liqueurs. The yellow flowers in spring are a delight in gardens in the UK too. I can’t recall ever seeing the fruit  on the trees here though.  Maybe this warm summer induced some fruiting?

In through some buildings and out into the botanics,  one of the first things you come across is a marvellous series of beds laid out with hops and other plants used in the beer industry in Scandinavia. I’m not going to list all the plants of interest here, go and see for yourself!

 

As well as a few remaining hop plants, there are many different herbs and grains here including this Rye plant, which i wouldn’t have recognised.

Next to the Beer garden is a good display of European native plants, to the untrained eye it looks like a big patch of weeds! Which actually many of them are!

Beyond this we came across a group of quinces, upon which the smell from  masses of  ripening fruits was almost overpowering!

The final lasting impression I had was of the many Mistletoe plants on the trees in the surrounding woodland area, giving an impression almost of a tropical forest of Bromeliads.

Andalucia and a Million Olive Trees

Lynsey Payne Appletree Places, Appletree Research, Fruit Trees, Purposeful Plants, Uncategorized Tags:

 

 

Last year I reported on a trip to  the Jerte Valley in Extradamura where I saw many Cherry trees. And in fact upon my return i found them for sale at a farm shop in Angus! Last month ( March)  I was again in Spain and visited both Madrid and Cordoba Botanic Gardens. Both had collections of herbs and fruit trees, but Cordoba also had splendid indoor displays of Olive, Vine and other traditional crops used for making baskets. However my best experience was seeing the extent of Olive growing in the south of Spain as I literally cycled through 200km of Olive Orchards! I am beginning to get the impression that Spain does its horticulture at a big scale. If ever there were a disease to hit these trees, then the economy of the region would collapse overnight.

The last of the trees along the Via Verde del Aceite were being harvested as i cycled by in early March; I scrumped a few, and was surprised to find them bitter and producing a red stain on my fingers. So much for olive green!

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Apparently ( according to wiki) they all need to be partially fermented to make them palatable. I saw men using sticks and a Stihl machine with a long vibrating pole to shake off the last fruits, which were then raked up by hand.

Surprisingly few varieties are grown commercially, and the dozen or so countries growing them tend to have their own favourite varieties. It is a growing industry, olives as we know being associated with healthy diets. Spain is by far the biggest producer, followed by Italy, Greece, Turkey and Morocco, with US and China all getting in on the act it seems.

It is suggested that they are not self-fertile, so a mix of varieties is necessary. I couldn’t discern a mix of trees myself, but there were orchards with a slightly greener leaf colour. The pollen can cause considerable irritation and it is windblown to boot. Glad I don’t live next door to an Olive Farm!

My biggest concern was the fact that there was no ground flora beneath these orchards, or very rarely a patch of yellow flowers, and as a consequence the heavy rains have caused a considerable amount of erosion on the hillsides. The area I travelled through was predominantly limestone and I would have expect to see a good number of flowers.

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Pruning was being carried out in many orchards, and seems to be quite brutal with big limbs being cut out of the middle of the trees with chainsaws. Presumably this is to let light in, and to facilitate easier harvesting with many horizontal branches. The spacing between the trees was very wide, well over 8m. Only later from the train window did I see some intensive orchards, with trees planted very close together in lines 3m apart or so. These were quite possibly pruned with hedgetrimmers. I wonder what the productivity is of these trees compared to the more extensive systems? Unfortunately i couldn’t find anyone to ask.

However i’m now back home and enjoying some big Olives Margaret bought at the Deli in Dunkeld. Alas I don’t know where they came from but I will be taking more interest as to where they originated and the variety in future!

 

Andrew March 2018.

 

It isn’t Spring. Really it isn’t.

Margaret Lear Status Garden, Purposeful Plants, Uncategorized, Vegetables, Wild Food & Wild Things, Winter

The clouds hang low across Birnam Hill in the sulky twilight and the air is turgid and heavy. Patches of pinkish light to the north, but the grey, oozy mist soon covers them. The oak and the sycamore on the lane stand out indignantly, black and convoluted against the gloaming.

I’ve been cleaning the wee greenhouse ready for seed sowing, unsurprised by the enthusiasm of shamrock spreading greenly in the gravel, but ecstatic to note that my Caucasian Climbing Spinach – the one in a pot – is already shooting. Alive! No sign of the outdoor ones yet, though they were more vigorous last summer.

In the garden. the rhubarb is up, leaves unfurling. Including the Lochgelly Miners’ Rhubarb. Little weeds everywhere I spread the compost rampage like they’ve never heard of frost. ice, snow, winter…. When I clear a border of overgrown perennials for replanting in spring, marching armies of daffodil shoots stand to attention.

Darkness deepens, I come in, the television news blares an icy message, not the latest pish from Trump this time, but of snow in Greek islands, temperatures of -30 degrees and freezing blasts and storms from Turkey across to Georgia, USA.

I wonder  if it is coming this way, any time soon.

Berber Artisans and City Life

Margaret Lear Status Appletree Places, Dishes/Comestibles, Firewood, Fruit Press, Habitats, Purposeful Plants, Resources, Spring, Teas & Tisanes, Wild Food

My trip from mountain to City was very eventful, but that’s for another day….I love to see people who can make things! I watched a leather worker in Chefchaouan make me a wallet, but in the maze of Marrakesh you can see gates being welded, chickens gutted, bed heads being carved, banjos being stretched, fabrics being woven and all within a few hundred yards of each other….well I did get lost and spent a happy 2 hours or so looking for the exit! If you have been there you will understand!  What a rich den of skilled people, they are highly inventive and recycle lots of odds and ends as part of their craft. The very narrow alleyways are surprisingly cool in the 34 degrees of last week. But watch out for the caleches, donkey carts, motorbikes and the sort of one way system of people!

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In contrast I visited the Yves Saint Laurent Jardin Majorel. I was told it was a major tourist attraction…I was there at daybreak so saw no-one else, but wow what a place! I’m not surprised it’s popular. It is the most perfectly manicured garden I have ever seen and very stunning in design and colour. And there’s a very good Berber Museum within.

Majorelle

Majorelle

Cacti Forest

Cacti Forest

So my intention to see horticulture here was more or less achieved, at least in the North, seeing the contrast of home vegetable gardening, small farms and large commercial farmers. It is a rich productive land wherever water allows in the mostly dry and rocky landscape.  Some dusty French hikers told of rich valleys in the High Atlas and Walnut groves, and where are these Argon trees…….mmmm next time…..oh and did i tell you about the air display at the airport, and the Romans at Larache, and the El Djemma Fna Concert show?

Djemma Fna

Djemma Fna

Olives and more in Chefchaouan

Margaret Lear Status Appletree Places, Blogs, Dishes/Comestibles, Firewood, Fruit Press, Medicinal Uses, Mountain, Purposeful Plants, Spring, Wild Food
Chefchaouan

Chefchaouan

Yeah, its the blue town and full of tourists. And hash punters. My wee hostel was run by some  permanently stoned guys, what a waste! But what a pretty little souk of narrow blue painted alleyways, lovely at night. A wee boy put the finishing touch to a wallet I had made for me.

Leatherwork

Leatherwork

The market day drew in rows of Rifian men and women, here to sell a few cabbages and onions and buy their own shopping before returning. It’s a very hard and simple life for these people…other larger traders had oranges and apples, olives or spices. These palm shoots intrigued me.

Palm Shoots

Palm Shoots

One of the wee squares was piled up with firewood for the Hammam Public Baths, a pleasure I didn’t find time for on this occasion.

Market Day

Market Day

Hammam Baths

Hammam Baths

Heading down from Chef to Fez, I was struck by the oranges,  and beans and others cereals sown underneath the Olive groves. At lower altitudes, there were larger fields of cereals and co-operatives with a more commercial layout of large fields. Almost no hedges or fences exist in Morocco. The sheep are constantly herded to prevent straying; even the motorway verges are grazed between Fez and Rabat!

Espagnol in Morocco

Margaret Lear Status Appletree Places, Blogs, Dishes/Comestibles, Estuary/Wetlands, Fruit Press, Purposeful Plants, Seashore, Spring, Teas & Tisanes

I have just spent a few weeks in Morocco on a farm and travelling around and thought i would record some of the events here. Those of you who have visited this fascinating country will be familiar with much of what is to follow!

English Breakfast

English Breakfast

I failed to secure a hostel in any of the Spanish enclaves so plumped for the longer ferry from Algeciras in Spain to Tangiers Med port.A lovely way to enter Africa, but not without a last breakfast of Eggs and bacon on the ferry.

Then refusal to pay 200 dirham for a grand taxi toute seule, ( thanks Lonely Planet my trusty companion ), and eventually got crammed into one with 4 others for a mad dash to Tangier bus station for 30 dirham. And there I enjoyed my first chaotic experience of the bus stations in Morocco, albeit with a few exceptions like the lovely CTM one at Tetouan. Anyway, I now knew to look for shared lifts, and waited patiently for a cheap shared grand taxi to Assilah. There’s always a headman ready to guide you …its actually quite a good system. But good to get away from that busy place and arrive at the wee town of Assilah by the sea ( though crammed in with 6 others this time! ) .Miles of beaches along the coast en route.

Mint Tea

Mint Tea

My memories of this place are of children moving to and from school at all times of the day, great mint teas, Spanish being spoken, prayers called at 5am, and the one shop with beer for sale!

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