Apple Harvest

It's not been a good year, at all, for apples—the fruit, at least: the apple trees have all grown well, especially the apple walk, which despite only going in at the end of last winter, have established extremely quickly. We spent half an hour yesterday tying in the last of this season's growth, and several will be ready to be cut back to their third tier in January.

Fruit yield, though, has been rather poor. I've collected everything this evening, while Liz picked blackberries, and we've only got a couple of crates full. The best have come from the two established trees right on the left of the orchard. The taste and texture are good, and they're a decent size, it's just there aren't very many. Never mind: we also had about eight fruit off the James Grieve and Falstaff (planted February 2013), which are very attractive, and taste great.