Catching up 1: apples

Wow, it's been a long time since the last post.  I am a lot more pregnant than I was!  I haven't been feeling great which is why there hasn't been any posting, but I have been squirrelling away the photos ready for when I do start posting again.

So here are the first few.  I've tried to theme them, so today it's...

Apples.

We have two apple trees in our garden, planted about 3 or 4 years ago, and this year (like last) we got around 50 apples off each tree.  They're supposed to be cordons but have gone a bit mad because I keep forgetting to prune them.

These are our first apples, I can't remember quite what variety they are but I think they're Discovery or something similar.  They are an early variety and are sweet with a pink blush to the flesh and the children love them.

These are the second lot from the later tree and they are definitely a variety called Sunset.  I love them, they are very much like coxes in flavour but they are a little sharp after eating the others for a month or so!

We got some beauties off this trees this year, and I am inordinately proud of them (especially considering I don't actually do anything and the apples just arrive - I can take no credit whatsoever!)  I particularly love the fact that for at least two months in the early autumn we are completely self sufficient in apples - we get through a lot of apples most weeks - and it saves us quite a bit of money too.

My Grand Plan (I have a few of these hanging around, they will happen eventually... I hope...) is to remove the privet hedge down one side of the garden and replace it with a fence and fruiting cordons, mostly apples but maybe the odd plum and pear in there too.  The other, slightly shadier, side has fruit bushes down it which are a little overgrown in places but do give us a reasonable crop of soft fruit (redcurrants/blackcurrants/gooseberries/blackberries) and I have a black elder ( variety Black Lace) which I love and which we can make pink elderflower cordial from.  All these were planted back before I had kids, so come to think of it it must be the apples' fourth season because they would have been planted before I had Hannah.  Actually it might be their fifth, I lose track these days.