Fruits on the farm

Physalis in the early morning sun

About ten years ago when we first started sourcing as much local and organic produce as possible for the hotel restaurant we realized there was a problem getting a selection of good fresh organic fruit.  So we started planting a variety of different fruit crops on the farm with the idea that some day we would be able to supply more fresh fruit for the hotel restaurant ourselves.

Here is a pictorial blog of the fruit on the farm and what we are harvesting at the moment.

Harvested physalis

We have been particularly successful with our soft fruit with huge harvests of raspberries. At the moment we are harvesting Polka an autumn raspberry

 We are normally cropping raspberries from late May to September and often have so many raspberries we  serve them for breakfast

Blackberries; we are just coming to the end of our blackberry harvest and last year planted two new varities with the idea of  extending the harvesting season

Strawberries; big harvests but we are in the process of planting new strawberry beds with a more  tastier variety Albion. The variety we have at the moment Selva has a disappointing flavour

About ten years ago we planted ten different cherry trees but there are also some old trees on the farm so we now have a good selection of both red and black cherries. All we need to do is harvest them before the birds do!

Summer deserts in the restaurante making the most of all our  home grown soft fruits

Blackcurrants; we have just finished cropping our blackcurrants but these we mostly freeze and use with meat dishes as well as in parfaits.

We are just about to harvest "Nashi" or Asiatic pears, our tree produces huge numbers of fruit, but they are rather small.

In the orchard as well as cider apples we planted a few pear trees and some eating apple trees, the fruits of which we will be harvesting from late august onwards.

This is how are persimons look at the moment, we always get an abundent harvest but they dont ripen till late November when the hotel is shut!

And finally here is our grape vine which adorns the hotel entrance. It produces masses of bunches of grapes but unfortunately they tend to split and rot before they ripen. This is due to mildew and we just havnt got to grips with organic control of mildew. You cant win them all!