What’s happened to the fruit and nuts this year!

From two apple trees, one plum tree, one cherry tree, and numerous blackberry bushes, our harvest has been pitiful. We’ve managed to collect half a dozen blackberries, and one apple this year. That’s it! Disappointed? Absolutely. The price of fruit isn’t cheap, so growing our own was meant to be both satisfying on the taste buds, as well as on the wallet.

So, what’s been happening to the fruit and nuts?

Well, the wet dreary summer has definitely had an impact on the blackberries. Not many actually rippened properly, stopping short of becoming colourful and juicy.

I’m going to apportion some of the blame to squirrels. They’ve enjoyed far too many apples and nuts. Surely they have eyes bigger than their bellies! I’ve seen the squirrels pinching the apples. They struggle with them because of their size, but it doesn’t deter them. They’ll pinch an apple off one tree, and then sit another tree having a munch. Then they’ll accidentally drop the apple, so go off in search of a new one to play with.

And as far as the nuts are concerned, we all know they like nuts, as displayed by ‘Cyril’ in our photograph.

The birds got to the cherries when they were about pea-sized while they were still on the tree, so we didn’t get a look in there either.

So what happened to our plums? Wasps! Ruined them all before they had a chance to ripen as well.

We don’t want the same thing happening again and are searching for ideas on how to ensure that we actually see things through to fruition (I like puns and at least they don’t grow on trees!) next year.

If you have any ideas about protecting fruit and nuts, then do let us know by leaving a comment below.

One idea we’ve heard about is to leave a bucket of diluted cider under the fruit tree you want to protect from wasps. Has anyone tried this? Does it work? I can think of better things to do with a bucket of cider, but if it saved our plums then it might be worth a go.