Saturday 17 October 2015

The old apricot tree in Spring 2015

At time of purchase, this property had one old diseased apricot tree, a walnut tree and a black boy peach.

This tree below is an unknown variety of apricot, and to the left of it out of frame is the walnut tree.  The walnut tree has fruited well every year, and in the cupboard I've both jars of walnut in form suitable for cake decoration and also pickled in malt vinegar.  The apricot however, was rather lacklustre and provided about five albeit tasty fruit last year.  In the photo below it can be see seen flowering, it flowered early and suffered little effect from the weeks of frosts which followed.

Old apricot tree at start of spring

The next picture is three weeks on, and while it's hard to make them out, it is covered in young green apricots.

Old apricot tree first fruit photo

Here's the tree four weeks on, note that behind it to the right is a sycamore tree.  This is the only real place I've seen bees this Spring and even then only yesterday.  Seriously.  I've been out in the paddock daily looking around, and while there might be the odd bumblebee, mostly it's flies that seem to be pollinating the flowers.

Old apricot tree second fruit photo 3

This is a close up of the tree at four weeks on.

Old apricot tree second fruit photo 2

And another.

Old apricot tree second fruit photo 1

This year is looking good for apricots.