Winter Pruning: Canopy Lifting and Canopy Thinning in Action
An overview of three recent pruning jobs, in which significant changes have been made to the shape and structure of the trees in question.
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Fruit Harvest Highlights – Autumn 2025 Edition
Part two of my harvest highlights from a superb fruit-growing year features plenty of autumn apples, pears, medlars and more.
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Essential Orchard Work for Early Summer
Summer can seem like a quiet, peaceful time in the orchard, but there are still plenty of important jobs to be getting on with.
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My Fruit Harvest Highlights – 2023 Edition
It’s my 2023 fruit growing round-up! The highs and the lows, the good and the bad, the weird and the wonderful.
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Thomas Jenner’s 1653 Recipe for ‘Preserving Medlers’
This C17th recipe for medlars in syrup sounds interesting, but reading it left me somewhat confused and bemused,
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Harvest 2022 – Top Fruit from the Allotment Orchard
Here are the extended highlights of this year’s harvest of apples, pears, quinces, plums and damsons. Top fruit galore!
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Robert May’s 1665 Recipe for a ‘Tart of Medlers’
Wondering what to do with your medlars once they start dropping from the tree? Here’s a C17th recipe that might come in useful.
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How To: Make Medlar Cheese and Medlar Jelly
Making medlar cheese and medlar jelly are great ways to get the best out of this unusual and tasty Autumn fruit. Here’s how.
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Plot #79 Orchard Year in Review, 2021 Edition
We’ve had a mixed year on our allotment plot orchard. Here’s a round-up of the good, the bad and the downright ugly.
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The 2021 Ordsall Hall Medlar Forecast is: ‘Very Good’
One of the most reliable fruits in the heritage orchard has a very long history and a very unique flavour.
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Now Collecting Historical Orchard Recipes
I’ve started putting together an index page of the archive recipes that I’m posting on the site.
