Back in September I wrote a review of my gardening year, which you can read about here. To be honest, I think the 7th of September was a bit early to be reviewing the year, but I guess I was short of something to write about at the time.

Lots of things could have happened in the 3 months since, but as it turns out nothing has, but it occurs to me I forgot to mention our 3 newest fruit trees, plum, cherry and pear.

We bought them a few years ago at a well known cut-price supermarket. I think they cost £5 each, which for 3ft bare rooted trees was a good price.

We planted them carefully and waited, knowing that we could not expect any crops for a couple of years at least.

All 3 thrived and one in particular is an absolute picture in Spring with its blossom, and looks just like a big white lollipop, but apart from the odd cherry, none of them produced any fruit, but we knew it was still early days.

This year for the first time it looked like all 3 were going to produce lots of fruit. Blossom buds faded and tiny fruits set on all 3 trees. Then we had a frost and some very strong winds.

Every single baby plum was destroyed, so that was a right-off for another year. Fortunately, the cherry and plums, although depleted, did still have some viable fruits, and as you can see from an earlier post the cherries in particular were a success.

So then we sat back and waited for the pears to ripen. To cut a long story short more strong winds meant that most of the fruit ended up on the ground. We saved what we could, but they didn’t seem to ripen off the tree and had the taste and consistency of dry cardboard.

In the end there was just one that was edible, and it was absolutely beautiful, sweet and juicy just like a pear should be. Pity there was only the one, I was hoping for a pair!!!

PS. The moorhen who arrived before Xmas only stayed a few days