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My first impression this year was that there was more to harvest than last. The berries have been smaller, but more plentiful. One of the local apple trees does have a weird issue in that only one branch started any fruit at all, while the tree adjacent to it is overloaded all over.
Elderflower earlier in the year was pretty good too.
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Not foraging related but I saw my dad today and he commented that his espalier pear, which normally gives him about 50-70 pears has about 4 on it this year.
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Can’t comment on the overall amount of fruit but I can say west of London we’ve had good garden strawberry crop and average raspberries. Out in the wild there’s been stacks of plums locally, usual huge numbers of blackberries but it’s a good area for them, looks like usual amount of elderberries but can’t comment yet what they’re like. Bit too early for the mulberries in Staines and I have to admit I haven’t been down to Bushy House to check the apples on Newton’s apple tree or the other trees. The wild apple trees down the side of the Staines bypass bit of the A308 seemed to have plenty of fruit but they’re not the best eaters. Don’t know who’s planted all the potatoes, pumpkins, beans and rhubarb down by the river at Staines Bridge but it all looks like it’s growing well!
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Leshaches
Tonts
Jonny69
@mespilus
Anybody else noticing a reduced amount of fruit this year?
One stretch of road I frequently cycle along had a 'Hedgerow mix' planted 40-odd years ago. The mix included some myrobalan, or small rounded plum. The colours vary from a typical plum deep purpley red to a vibrant yellow. This year the crop is less than a 1/3 of last year, based not upon what I could gather from the grass verge, or from the trees themselves, (others could also be foraging here), but from the amount of fruit on the road.
A couple of clumps of these former fruit bearing trees appear to be in good health, (fully leaved, no sign of infections on the leaves), but zero fruit, as if they are having a year off.
No myrobalan chutney this year.