Bring on the summer fruit

It has been a really hot and wet week in Sydney. Almost tropical- stinking hot and humid with thunderstorms in the evenings. The vegies are leaping out of the soil, and the first of the summer fruit is starting to come on.

Wandering out the other day I found a single ripe blueberry. Not sure how long it had been there, but I really never realised that blueberries could taste so good. So different to the shop bought ones, which really never appealed to me unless they were baked into muffins.

I’ve discovered the trap with them now though- after eating the first one and raving to P about it, I picked three more just after they turned blue. I inadvertently had set a booby trap. When P ate them he puckered up like crazy – I think they need a few days on the bush after they turn blue for them to sweeten up.

My strawberries are still powering along, although the lizards are out in force now and they love them as much as we do.

The slugs are making a meal of my mulberries, so I really need to get some of the Multiguard slug pellets out quickly.  I love the fact that they are iron-based and  non-toxic.
My little sunset nectarine is still holding onto 3 or 4 fruit. Unfortunately the peach didn’t take well to the late sulphur spray and dropped its crop.

Luckily our good friends brought around some of their stonefruit crop, really early this year due to the heat. How good does it look! Well it did look good until Little D got his mitts on them and tossed a few like cricket balls, so we were forced to gorge ourselves immediately. They tasted amazing!

One of my apple trees is still holding onto 2 apples. Now I’m terrified  that I’ll pick them too early or late – so much pressure! Apples are funny things. I have two warm climate apples that flowered at the same time. The fruit on the Tropical Anna (the only one that actually set fruit) is nearing maturity. The other tree (a multigraft of Granny Smith and Pink Lady hasn’t even started flowing yet. It has really only woken up from its winter hibernation in the last month. Either this first year is going to be a dud, or the timing of these different varieties is up to 6 months apart. Funny thing, these apples.

Now Ali will be sad (either that or secretly delighted) at this news. Of my two avocado trees, one of them (the Sheppard) set a single fruit. It was tiny, it was gorgeous, sadly doomed. I came out the next morning and it had dropped off. Better luck for both of us next year, hey Ali?

Next post, I’ll have two very exciting things to share with you. One of them is hanging in my carport right now, and there’s not much space for anything else.