Bank Holiday Surprises!

This afternoon, we ambled down to the plot to prep the soil ready for transferring our seedlings from the greenhouse. The sun was out, the sky was blue and there was a gentle wind too which was lovely.

I left my husband with instructions to hoe the beds after removing all the dreaded mare’s tail. I began work on pulling the grass and weeds from along the sides of the central path. It’s a slow job but after a couple of hours, we had managed to clear over two thirds of the plot. 

As I was battling with the grass and mare’s tail, my husband asked “What are these? Plums?”. I turned around to scoff at the ridiculous idea that the plum tree had actually grown fruit. All the years we have had it, it’s never produced anything. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Then I registered the tree he was pointing at – the apricot tree. Alongside the plum, the apricot tree is equally irritating, refusing to hold the blossom log enough for it to set. And to add insult to injury, has also never grown a single fruit in the many years we have had it. Reminding him of these important facts did not deter my husband from insisting there was fruit on the tree. Rolling my eyes, I reluctantly left the weeding and walked over to inspect the world’s most uncooperative fruit trees.

But what was that? A greenish blob hanging underneath the branch. Surely that couldn’t be an apricot? Not after all these years? It seemed to be. What was even more incredible was spotting more, and more! If we have a warm summer, we might get our first crop of apricots! Inspired by this exciting discovery, I had a closer inspection of the plum tree. Miraculously, it was also in fruit. Clearly, it didn’t want to be outdone by the apricot tree!

Amazed and excited by our discoveries, we finished off the bed we were working on and headed home, planning for another busy session tomorrow.