Our first fruits

Well, the cherries have been and gone. Sorry we couldn't share them with you, but as it was the birds managed to get a free feed from the uppermost branches of the tree. Our daughter (affectionately known as Mariposa) is usually the one to find the first fruit in the garden and indulges a healthy snack before advising the rest of us that the fruit is actually ready for picking.

Our cherry tree was one of the first fruit trees we planted once we moved to this house. It's a self-pollinating variety called "Stella", and it's our first attempt at an espalier tree. Last year it was left to fill out a bit in the hope of gaining a greater crop, but the branches at the top have gotten too tall and I think it's been easy picking for the neighbours (as the tree is near the fence) and the birds. The lower branches just didn't give us the yield I'd hoped. Well, a lesson learnt!!

Still, wandering out into the garden this morning was still very pleasant. It's a glorious day and I managed to find a goodly number of raspberries which look like a wonderful number for dessert this evening. ... LOL! I'm trying to add the picture to follow this paragraph, but it wants to sit on top of this post, so above is the picture taken this morning of some of our first raspberries. (I'll get to learn all the 'ways' of blogging as I go along, I suppose!)

We have a nice selection of fruit trees here, but I always wish we had room for more. Our property is not quite a quarter acre, and the buildings have not been situated to make the most of the north. Therefore, our ideal gardening areas for growing food crops are limited.

As soon as we moved here we put in an apple tree (Golden Delicious), a lemon (Eureka) - a gift from my MIL, two plums (Blood Plum and Satsuma) and then the Cherry. Slowly we've added to our collection with an Apricot (Moorpark), Mandarin (Imperial), Tahitian Lime, Lemonade, two-way Pear (Bartlett and William), two more apples (Pippin and Granny Smith), a White Nectarine (one of the children's friend has grown it from a seed) and a Lilipilli which I heard is great pickings for jam making. Last year we put in a Pomegranate, Almond and a Fig (from a cutting donated by friends). They live in the front yard (the new trees, not the friends).

Yes, they take up a lot of room, but having fresh fruit in season is such a luxury, it's worth it! All of the apples and plums are now where the chooks have their run, so they take care of the weeding for us there. Thankfully, each fruit comes into season in a sequence, so we don't tend to have a glut of all the fruit at once.