If you are growing cordon, espalier, fan trained or other ‘restricted’ forms of fruit trees on dwarfing rootstocks, now is the time for summer pruning. In France we can start this process a little earlier than in England which is usually late July. The ideal time is when the lateral shoots that have grown all along the main stems are roughly as thick and as long as a pencil.

You need to cut all of these new stems back to a couple of buds, this will keep the shape of the tree restricted and in form, it will also reveal the fruits and main branches which will allow sunshine to ripen the fruits, making them sweeter, tastier and give them a red

bloom. It will also allow sunshine to ripen the wood of the main branches and spurs which helps to strengthen the wood, prepare for dormancy and induce bud formation for next years flowers and fruits.

We will be holding a demonstration at Le Jardin Creatif on Saturday 30th June at 11.00am FREE. Come along on Saturday and find out more.

 

Now is the time to pickle some walnuts! If you have never tried pickled walnuts before then you may not appreciate the subtle flavour combination of pickled walnuts with a good cheese, traditionally eaten at Christmas time but an excellent pairing at any time of the year.

Pickled walnuts do not look attractive as they turn a deep brown colour as they mature, and resemble sliced brains….. but dont let this put you off!

Walnuts are pickled whole in their outer husk before the inner shell starts to harden. They should be picked before they reach full maturity and should be around the size of a quails egg or slightly larger, this is usually around mid-June, to determine the best time for pickling you need to pick one off the tree and cut it in half, if the shell is still soft and they are a reasonable size then they are ready for pickling. You dont need many to fill a jar, maybe around 10 to a dozen per jar. There are plenty on the trees this year so you won’t miss them at harvest time.

You then need to prick them several times each with a sharp knife or fork and drop them straight into a brine mixture, avoid getting any juice on your hands or clothing because it stains a dark brown very quickly. They will need to stay in brine for two to three weeks depending on their size, change the brine each week (you can make brine easily by dissolving salt in cold water).

After the brining period they are ready to pickle. You should rinse them first and then leave them to oxidise for a few hours so that they go an even brown colour all over (they will start to brown in patches during the brining process). Then pack into jars and cover with hot vinegar – you can use red wine, white wine or cider vinegar that has been heated with a few pickling spices such as star anise, allspice and peppercorns and a desert spoon of sugar to reduce the acidity slightly.

They need to be stored for a few months before eating, ideally until Christmas!

Serve with cheese and port.

 

Grape vines are vigorous and prolific and can quickly get out of hand but training them is straight forward and getting the best out of the fruits is simple but it does take a little maintenance.

All over France you will see neat vineyards and immaculately trained vines, on a large scale this is usually done using specialist machinery but we can adapt the principles to pruning your vines on a domestic scale.

 

Grown against a wall, the usual method is similar to the ‘Geneva Double curtain’, this system consists of permanent main stems or ‘rods’ trained in the shape of a capital ‘T’. If you are planting a new vine, this is easy to achieve, simply pinching the top out when it reaches the height that you want it and then allowing two stems to grow from this, training them in horizontally as wide as you want them to go. This may take the first growing season to achieve. In the second year you will find that many new stems appear from all along the horizontal top of the ‘T’ (you may also get some up the vertical). Look carefully at these stems around early June and you will be able to see the tiny bunches of flowers which will become the grapes. If you want ‘dessert’ grapes for eating, you want to encourage them to grow as big as possible, so only allow one bunch per stem. Cut off the rest of the stem including any additional bunches of grapes one bud beyond the bunch that you are keeping, this may seem harsh

but it will channel all of the energy into one bunch, making them bigger and better quality and they will ripen better with more sunlight getting to them. If you are growing for wine then you can allow two bunches to form on each stem, the grapes will be smaller but with a more intense flavour. (see video below). The ‘Double Guyot’ System is more suitable for vines grown in rows in the field, look out for further information in a future post!

 

 

After harvesting in the late summer you can then cut back each stem to one bud, keeping the T shaped main rod in place. You will get regrowth the following year from each of the buds along these main stems. Grapes grow on ‘new wood’ i.e. the newly developing stems each year so you can keep them neatly trained in and if you need to renovate them you can cut them hard back and still get grapes in the current year. Major pruning should be done between harvesting and Christmas time because the vines will bleed heavily once the sap starts to rise in late winter.

 

 

All around us at the moment is the sweet aroma of the Robinia pseudoacacia (false acacia) flowers. Last summer our French neighbour recommended that we try making beignets – fritters – with them. Having tried elderflower fritters we were keen to have a go.

 

I made a simple light batter out of a 50/50 mix of cornflour and plain flour, beaten egg and a drop of sparkling white wine as there happened to be a bottle open! (You could use beer or sparkling water) you then dip the flowers into the batter by holding onto the main stem, let some of the excess drain off and then fry until golden in hot oil, this only takes a couple of minutes.

We served this as a savoury dish with tapas, they go nicely with a yogurt and tahini dip or a smokey chilli salsa but you can also drizzle with honey and eat as a desert with crème fresh. Yum!

Last year our fruit harvest was devastated by a late frost which damaged all of the delicate young developing fruits on our apples, pears and cherries. There were only a handful of walnuts to be had too but this could be due to high winds and/or heavy rain around the time of pollination.

Walnuts are not pollinated by insects like apples and pears but by the wind, therefore when there is either no wind or too much wind or heavy rain, pollination may be poor. You have probably noticed the large, fat catkins on your walnut trees that have now fallen to the ground. These are the male flowers and produce the pollen. Have you spotted the female flowers that are now fully open?

Walnuts, like many trees, are what is botanically known as ‘monoecious’ this means that they have separate male and female flowers on the same tree (some plants are dioecious where the male and female flowers are on separate plants giving the individual plants a gender). They also have a clever way of avoiding self pollination which is to produce the male flowers before the female ones (known as Protandry) this is why it is best to have several trees growing in close proximity so that it is more likely that there will be pollen around when the female flowers open.

The female ‘flowers’ are not particularly decorative. Because they do not need to attract insects there are no petals, colour or scent, instead they are purely functional consisting of the plump ovary (that will develop into the nut) ad two large and feathery  stigma that are sticky and have evolved to capture as much pollen as possible.

Other monoecious trees include hazel, birch and poplar. A common dioecious tree is holly and this is why you need at least one male and one female variety growing nearby in order to get berries on the female. Watch out though, the cultivars often have confusing names such as ‘Golden King’ which is actually a female variety.

Apples and pears like all fruiting members of the Rosaceae family are hermaphrodite, bearing flowers that possess both male and female organs within  the same structure and are insect pollinated.

Watch out for our basic botany courses coming this autumn to learn more about the fascinating world of plants!