It's that time of the year again

Having a fight with all the birds and wasps to see who can get the most cherries :cherries::laughing: I wish the birds would either stop taking one peck out of the cherry or eat what is pecked lying on the ground, they waste a lot the little buggers :cherries::cherries:

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Iā€™m watching the figsā€¦ and waiting for the right momentā€¦

So agree! Blackbirds and starlings are winning this year!

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Mine arenā€™t edible until at least July and usually keep going through August until the end of September.

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Green figs are always the first hereā€¦ about a week away I reckon.
My personal favourites are the violet/black ones which are ready to eat in September and onwardsā€¦ I bag a huge harvest of those delicious beautiesā€¦ as they ripen when their Owners have gone back homeā€¦ ha haā€¦
We all share whatever is on the goā€¦ jam making in the heat of summer is some folkā€™s idea of funā€¦ I put fruit in the freezer and make jam in the cooler/winter months.

also, frozen whole figs are panfried to accompany all sorts of delicious goodies at Christmasā€¦

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Figs will appear any day here and ripen very fast. My daily sport is gathering ones from the neighbourā€™s tree that drop into our garden and throwing them back over the wall to where they belong.

:woman_playing_handball:t2:

My Agnes looks like a poodle but eats like a labrador. Dogs can have a couple of figs a week but Iā€™m afraid Agnes doesnā€™t know when to stop.

So far I have cherries (I planted about 6 varieties), red and white currants, nectarines are on their way, there will be quinces apples and medlars, need to look at the persimmon as its flowers are so discreet, there are almonds, various sorts of plum, lots of flowers on one of my pomegranates but not as many as last year, I think the frost got the pears, the deer got the nashi, peaches hate it here so I havenā€™t even looked at them too depressing.
My dog loved going and eating soft fruit off the bushes, as do the hens- and she adored cherries, and would hoover them up with her nose scrunched up and teeth out, crunch crunch slurp, cherrystones spraying out laterally.

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Our figs are hanging with fruit this year, walnut, black walnut, 3 different pears, 12 different types of apple, 3 different cherry, green, black grapes, greengages, plum, quince, raspberry, red/white/ blackcurrant, we are getting help with the picking/ freezing and OH loves jam making, then there is the veg :face_with_peeking_eye::laughing:

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and weā€™ve got the tiny wild strawberries which seem to flower and fruit all year roundā€¦ their ripe fruits are like a drop of delicious magic on the tongueā€¦
image

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Looks like weā€™ll have a better crop of figs this year. I tried apricots one year, but even against a south facing wall, the winter killed it.

However, the currants are looking good and the bushes are small enough to net. Cherries are another matter as I bought a dwarf cherry a couple of years back in order to make netting possible (my partner loves cherries and they are the tops for relieving gout) but the tree didnā€™t know it was meant to be dwarfā€¦

Looks like a potential bumper crop for blueberries which will be very good news for our American neighbours who love them. I find them a bit tasteless unl;ess really fresh and ripe.

@JaneJones gave us a berry shrub a couple of years back - canā€™t remember what itā€™s called - but thatā€™s looking promising too!
Think itā€™s going to ba a fruit year since the veg are non-existent (dratted cats)

The cherry in the cottage garden is well over 100 years old and even though it gets hacked back each year is big, there are two different cherries on it and the graft is one of the biggest I have ever seen.



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My walnuts are just flowering, Iā€™m fairly sure I saw mega catkins. Obviously the ones that do best are the ones the squirrels planted, like this oneā€¦

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Itā€™s certainly grass-growing timeā€¦ and possibly mowing the grassā€¦ yes, no?? butā€¦ whenā€¦ ???

confirm with your own Prefectureā€¦ but in generalā€¦

En rĆØgle gĆ©nĆ©rale, tondre est autorisĆ© : du lundi au vendredi de 9 h Ć  12 h et de 14 h Ć  19 h 30 ; le samedi de 9 h Ć  12 h et de 15 h Ć  19 h ; les dimanches et les jours fĆ©riĆ©s de 10 h Ć  12 h.

https://www.ouest-france.fr/le-mag/jardin/peut-on-tondre-sa-pelouse-les-dimanches-et-les-jours-feries-on-vous-repond-6199c250-fb9d-11ed-abcd-efa42af71e3f

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What do you do with it all? I have plum jams and chutneys still in the fridge from about seven years ago. I donā€™t bother to pick any fruit any anymore - just leave them all for the birds and pick one or two for myself when passing the trees.

ha haā€¦ I would sit in the shade with a huge basket full of figsā€¦ and wait for the kids to passby on their way home from school. (they knew me from school-events) Had to ration 'em to 3 each though ā€¦ and later Iā€™d visit their homes and present Mum/Dad/Whoever with as many as they wanted to takeā€¦
An adult who didnā€™t know me, might ask ā€œhow muchā€ rather warilyā€¦
but when I cheerfully chortled ā€œabsolutely freeā€¦ā€ they would swiftly grab the offeringsā€¦ :slight_smile:

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Take it back to the UK when we go back, give it away here, use it ourselves as we have quite a few visitors in the year.
We used it as favours on the tables for the wedding/reception here and the wedding reception in the UK last year, 80 jars and only had one apple and cinnamon left afterwards.
We make wine, apple juice and cider as well.

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Just beware of eating ones that might be contaminated with fox poo (some also say urine, but I think this is not the case.) even on a microscopic level. Echinoccocus is not a fun thing to get.

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Theyā€™ve spread all over the place, but (as you suggest) Iā€™m very wary of where I pick 'em. thankfully, thereā€™s an enclosed area where nuffink can get at 'em and thereā€¦ I can let rip :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Back in UK as kids, we were always told never to pick blackberries below a certain heightā€¦ although these fraises are at ground level :wink:

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I think ours are just as ugly and weā€™ve got two. The biggest one didnā€™t produce a single cherry last year or this year but the smaller one is loaded this year. Weā€™ve planted many hundreds of trees in our lifetime but never bothered about fruit trees. I remember my parents used to put a sticky band around the trunk of their fruit trees to stop the winter moth catapillar and I think theyā€™re still being used?


Yes they are, in the UK, but here they do the equivalent by painting a band of some sticky stuff around the trunk. I have a tin of it on the shelf in the barn where it doesnā€™t do any good at all :rofl: