No cherries, no pears

Posted on July 8, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged apples, Bees, Cherries, Cold, Fruit, Garden, Gardening, Life, Pears, Sad, Trees, Wet, WindyLeave a comment

Each year we have cherries and pears on our trees. The birds get most of the cherries but we get good pears, that is until this year.

We had a lovely display of blossom. The cherry and the pear tree blossomed first. Early in spring. Lots of flowers, pink and white. But I was worried because it was cold and wet and windy and I didn’t see many insects (and we don’t seem to have had birds nesting either). A couple of weeks later the blossom had faded and petals showered the ground. Then the apple tree came into blossom. The sun shone and bees arrived. Now I have no cherries, I saw the little stalks with tiny pips all over the ground, and no discernable baby pears. It’s so sad. It’s like they have given up now hubby is gone.

My only consolation is that there are lots of apples on the tree. But it hangs over into my neighbours yard and I am worried they will cut it back, and as there is a trellis fence in the way I can’t access the fruit. Drat!

Cherry and Pear blossom

Posted on April 14, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bees, Blossom, Cherries, Flowers, Fruit, Fruit trees, Insects, Pears, plums, Pollinate, WindLeave a comment

The garden is starting to bloom. The pear trees were in blossom a few days ago, and the cherry tree has come into flower over the last couple of days. Over in the hedge a plum tree is blossoming too.

The only trouble is it’s windy and as yet I haven’t seen any bees or insects about. I hope they get to the nectar before the petals blow away. If I’m going to get any fruit this year the trees need pollinating. Fingers crossed for the crop.

5 year old pears

Posted on October 23, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged 5 years, Blossom, Cooking, Fresh, Fruit, Gardening, Juicy, Life, Memory, Pears, Ripe, Tasty2 Comments

Our pear tree grows lovely pears. These were sweet and juicy when they ripened. And big too. They are lovely baked into a pie or a cake, or just freshly sliced.

Pears seem to take ages to ripen, then suddenly they all get ripe at once. Five years ago we had a massive crop, this year much more meagre. Perhaps the tree blossom was too early, and the bees and other pollinators hadn’t emerged yet? Or maybe the wind blew the blossom off to soon. Hopefully next year will be a good crop?

Poor pears

Posted on September 13, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blossom, Cherries, Crop, Food, Fruit, Fungus, Gardening, Growing, Pears, Ripe, Time, Trees4 Comments

Some years the pears set, the tree is well watered and we get many pears off our tree. But it’s looking sad as the wind blew it over at an angle a few years ago. We had to support it on blocks of wood.

As the branches are horizontal that usually encourages fruiting. But both the pear and cherry trees flowered but we’re caught by late frosts and then strong winds that blew the blossom off. The cherry only managed half it’s crop and now the pear is even worse. A few pears had a fungal infection and had to be thrown away, you can’t compost them as it encourages the fungus to spread. So we only have a few pears to show this year. Here are three. The little one is going squishy so it’s getting thrown out.

Pears are funny, they stay unripe for ages. Then seem to ripen overnight. We will just eat these, as there is not enough for a chutney.

Cornucopia

Posted on August 16, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, cornucopia, Digital drawing, digitally drawn, Drawing, Fruit, horn of plenty, Life, sketchbook app, Sketching2 Comments

Another #bandofsketchers prompt was plenty. Cornucopia or horn of plenty was a display of fruit and beautiful food presented in a large shell or spiralling horn if I remember correctly. I did a digital sketch and tried to create an abstract image of it.

Fruit

Posted on July 20, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Art, Colour, Drawing, Felt pens, Fruit, gin, Lemon, limes, SketchingLeave a comment

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was fruit. Lemon and limes sitting in a bowl for gin and tonics, but I haven’t had any gin in for weeks! Felt pen drawing, as usual. But I tried to use a minimal amount of black and not use much outlining, so it’s more solid colour.

Chomped cherries!

Posted on July 1, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cherries, Food, Fruit, Life, pecked, Red, Tasty, Time, Tree, Umbrella, Water, WindLeave a comment

We just gathered some cherries off the ground because the rain and wind has knocked a lot off the tree. This is about a third of them that were too bruised, damaged or pecked. The rest have just been washed thoroughly in salty water and I’ve put them in the fridge to eat tomorrow. I will thoroughly rinse them again first.

The plan is to get a broom or a stick to try and pull some more down and collect them in an upturned umbrella. I hope the weather doesn’t intervene in the meantime! Praying the wind doesn’t whip up and blow them off. There’s still plenty left for the birds…

Waiting for cherries

Posted on June 26, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cherries, Cherry tree, Food, Fruit, Gardening, Life, not ready yet, Red, Ripening, Sweet, Tasty8 Comments

Three years ago our cherry crop was already picked. The tree came from the old Woolworths shop in Stoke about twenty five years ago. It must have been happy because now it’s about thirty feet high.

The cherries are starting to ripen, but they are not ready yet. Maybe next week we can reach the lower ones. The rest we donate to the birds. One thing I need to do is buy a big umbrella, it really helps to stop the cherries we pick from rolling off into the undergrowth!

Fruits

Posted on May 22, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged diet, Eating, Food, Fruit, healthy, Life, Oranges, Pears, plums, Sugar, Sweets, yoghurt2 Comments

Oranges, pears and plums. Tasty treats. I might get some set Greek style yoghurt and have a sliced orange with my cereal in the morning.

Fruit is healthier than fruit juice because instead of giving your body a quick hit of sugar (fructose), it takes longer to absorb if you have the fibres of the fruit to digest to release the sweetness. I learnt to my cost when I was younger. I was drinking a lot of fruit smoothies every day. Very nice, but it affected my health after a couple of years of drinking them. It really is a case of everything in moderation.

We are lucky to have fresh fruit here, but not everyone can afford it. It’s cheaper to buy sweets or food with too much sugar added. A poor diet really is bad for you, but if you are poor it’s not easy to be healthy.

Bananas…

Posted on May 16, 2023May 16, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged apples, bananas, Blueberries, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1938, Eton mess, Fruit, meringue, Oranges, Strawberry2 Comments

List your top 5 favorite fruits.

Bananas, with custard or on toast, my number 1.

Apples, sliced or in a tart with cinnamon.

Blueberries, stirred into my morning porridge.

Oranges, freshly peeled, or squeezed for their juice.

Finally strawberries. Either with cream or ice-cream. Or mixed into an Eton Mess.. Cream, meringue and strawberry all smashed together.

Well that was a boring list! It must be hard to try and think of a prompt to get people to write. Finding a specific idea, and then trying to find out everyone’s opinions. Maybe I should have chosen some less well known fruits, but I don’t know exotic ones. I’ve seen jackfruit on the TV but I’ve never tasted it.

And what is classed as a fruit? Some things are more like vegetables, some berries, do you have to have the seeds on the inside? I should have looked up a definition.

The thing I have to remember is that not everyone can afford fresh fruit. When I was a child, Sunday afternoon tea was canned peaches with evaporated milk and white bread and butter. We didn’t know, but our parents could not afford much. To us it was a treat and when we got maraschino cherries in our orange squash at Christmas it was so delicious. Now, with the cost of living crisis people cannot get the food they need, and that’s in the 6th most rich country in the world. If you look at the rest of the world, there is so much poverty that it must be a dream to get fresh fruit. What a strange world we live in.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Fruit