Our first apple harvest

Our Discovery on the left, a shop bought Pink Lady on the right.

And the grand total of apples this year is... six! That's from all four potted trees; two per tree, not counting the naughty Cox's Orange Pippin which lived up to its reputation and refused to play. We had plenty of blossoms in the spring (and very pretty they were too), but as I was advised to limit the number of apples on the first year, I chopped all but two tiny apples off all the trees. Maybe it's for this reason (there was certainly enough room for growth) that all our apples have grown absolutely huge.

Our Fiesta on the left, a shop bought Discovery on the right.

We've left both of the James Grieves on the tree, so we've got one more tasting to come!

The fruit are taking over!

I'm constantly complaining about the lack of space in my garden, but lately I've come to the conclusion that it can't be that bad. While I was doing some spring cleaning I was counting all the berry pots and was quite surprised how many (the usual suspects: blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, red and black currants) I'd managed to cram in. To make sure no space is wasted I've moved the water butt slightly and ordered a Japanese wineberry to climb over the arch on the side of the house. Very exciting.

I found another excuse to sneak some more fruit in as we needed to replace two big lavender bushes that had sadly drowned (drainage, drainage!) in their pots during the winter. Off to the shops we went and as soon as I saw the tree section I refused to leave without at least one tiny fruit tree. In the end we dragged two apple trees (Fiesta and Cox's Orange Pippin) and a lovely cherry tree (Stella) to the checkout. Nuts, I know. I'm not convinced we'll be getting any apples of the now total of four small trees that we have (in pots scattered around the paved bits), but I love trees and I'm happy to give them some space if there is a possibility that we'll be getting some fruit.

I think I'm now officially banned from any gardening related shops for a while.

The extended run

We collected the run extension on Sunday and had an all round fabulous day. I think it's becoming a sort of hobby of mine, finding good deals (so far chicken related) on Ebay and having a nice day out when collecting them. We drove past several nurseries, and then braked and reversed. I've trained Hubby well, as nowadays it's him spotting all the places of interest and asking if I want to stop and have a look.

On the way back home we had the car packed with the extension, a James Grieve apple tree (same pollination group as my Discovery), some garlic (French Thermidrome) which I planted yesterday in pots and a dozen free range eggs from a lovely man and his garden hens.

Here's the run with the extension, I'm sure the girls appreciate it as they haven't been allowed to free range while being wormed. Let's see how long the hemp bedding will stay nice and clean before they mix it up with soil and... other stuff!

Apple's the word!

We went to B&Q on the weekend and while Hubby was looking at what I call boring stuff, I sneaked to the garden bit and the trolley was filled with green leafy things in no time. I found an apple tree (Discovery) to replace our cherry tree (that got offended by very wet feet and was finished off by a well aimed shovelful of icy snow), a fig tree (Brown Turkey) and two blueberry varieties I didn't have yet (mail ordered Nui, Chandler and Herbert got new friends called Goldtraube and Northland). And I only went for some playsand for the chooks' dustbath!

It will take a few years before we get any apples (provided that the tree survives that long) and I really wanted to make some more of that delicious jam, so I placed an add on Freecycle asking for some apples and boy did we get some! We came home from this lovely lady's house with a big flexitub full of gorgeous tangy apples. You can see the bounty in the picture above. I used just over two kilos of apples to make some jam (result: the best jam so far!) and the tub still looks full. I think I'll have to find some more apple recipes sharpish!

Another thing on my to do list is to plant the apple tree. I was going to train it somehow, but I can't decide what would be the best way. The label suggests to plant it at an angle of 45°, so maybe I should follow that advice. I've never seen a tree planted this way though and I keep thinking that to everyone but a fruit tree connoisseur it might look like someone's planted the tree after a very long night in the pub! Anything to save some space, I suppose.

Anyone grown apple trees in big pots?