There are several late varieties of plums that ripen in autumn, store well, and lend themselves to a variety of different preserving methods. Most plums make good jam, even plums such as Autumn Giant, which despite having pale yellow flesh, ma [...]

This recipe was made for us by some WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) who stayed with us for a couple of months– he was German, she was Japanese, and they were in loooove. One of the things they enjoyed doing together was cooking, an [...]

Plums are a wonderful, resilient fruit, that can usually handle rougher treatment, and will be more likely to ripen off the tree if picked too early, than many other fruit. Having said that, it’s still worth trying to get the picking times rig [...]

In keeping with our philosophy of making things easy for you, our recipes for poached and pickled pears couldn’t be simpler, and are very adaptable. Get the recipe in Autumn - week 8.

Getting a crop of fruit from our trees depends on having enough bees and other pollinating insects in our garden, at the right time. Find the activity in Spring - Week 1.

Fruit trees produce fruit as a result of sexual reproduction, which means that the female parts of a flower have to be fertilised with the male pollen, usually from a different plant. For many fruit trees the pollen needs to come from a differ [...]

Lack of appropriate pollination is one of the leading causes of lack of fruit. This activity guides you to check that all the fruit trees in your garden have the right pollinising buddy. Find the activity in Autumn - Week 7.

As organic gardeners, we don’t use chemicals to kill pests and diseases, but instead rely on building a healthy, balanced ecosystem in our garden—it’s better for our health, the health of the environment, and it also takes some pressure off ou [...]

There are two great reasons to do some budding (summer grafting) this year; the first is to continually improve your garden so that every fruit tree is pulling its weight, i.e., fulfilling the purpose you have in mind for it. The second reason [...]

Part of the joy of growing your own fruit is preserving it to enjoy once the harvest is complete. Opening a jar of bottled peaches, or apricot jam, or nectarine chutney brings a little bit of summer into the cold, dark depths of winter. Tradit [...]

Fresh fruit is healthy and full of vitamins—especially if you’ve grown it yourself, using organic methods! So when preserving fruit to eat over winter when there’s not much available in the garden, it‘s important to preserve the vitamin conten [...]

Ever wondered why we grow so many heritage varieties here? One reason is that we want to help preserve them, and the best way to do that is to grow them, but the other reason is that many modern varieties are not easily available to small grow [...]