Baldock Gardens

May - The most exciting time of the year for me as an ex-fruit farmer.

Growing top fruit (Apples and Pears ) the end of April into the start of May was like waiting for Christmas morning to come. Will Santa bring me something nice, or will his sleigh slip off the roof and end up in the garden, and everything gets ruined? Don't let the kids see that bit. What I mean is that we would have spent from October, when the harvest is completed and put away into cold storage, then through to March grading and packing, then sending them to the supermarkets, as well as pruning the thousands and thousands of trees in the orchards. From March onwards, we would be weed killing, fertilising and spraying for pests and diseases. Depending on the season's start, warm or cold, we would see the trees break dormancy around mid-April, plus or minus a week. The buds would open, starting with what is called bud burst when they swell, and the scales slowly slide apart to reveal the green new leaves inside. The next stage is called mouse ear; this is when the leaves uncurl from the tip of the bud, forcing their way out into the new world; they look just how they are described, mouse ears. Next, the trees push a steady stream of sap up to the buds forcing them to open more and more. As the temperature rises, the little flower buds push out into the open, away from the protection of the main bud. At this stage, they still are pretty hardy and can tolerate a slight frost.

Now it starts to get scary, and we watch the weather forecast all day; the little stalks holding the precious flowers extend, pushing the flower buds out into the open; this is called the green bud stage.

The next stage is the pink bud stage; this is when the green buds swell and reveal the pink petals within the bud. If we have got our timings correct, we will have had hundreds of Bee hives brought into the orchards to pollinate the flowers by then. At pink bud, the petals are still closed like a ball and will

By Graham Tapp

slowly open to become a beautiful pink flower.

At full flower, they have no protection against cold weather or frosts.

We then have a nervous wait to see if the Bees have done their job, and we get excellent pollination; it will show itself in the petals dropping quickly called shatter: that's the exciting part. If the pollination is poor due to the cold weather, the petals will stick on the trees much longer and become a slimy mess.

This is the time I refer to as the Santa's Sleigh crash or a present under the Christmas tree.

In the next week to ten days, we will see what crop level we can expect, will the little Apples drop or stay? Some of the little Apples will drop, but most, if set, will remain attached to the tree; we don't count our chickens quite yet as there is a weird freak of nature that happens in early July, strangely called the June drop. Who called it that no one I have ever spoken to knows, but that's what it is called.

We do know that it's a numbers game; each little apple flower that is pollinated will give one apple, and each apple will contain a number of seeds; if there are a high number of seeds, they will produce a hormone that will cause the tree to abort some apples until the hormone is reduced to a sustainable level.

Apple trees produce many, many more flowers than they could ever support if they were all pollinated and had fruit. I very much doubt if ten per cent will produce fruit and maybe fewer than five per cent actually go to full term and are harvested.

There are many other causes of fruit drop, from pests and diseases to the weather and nutrient imbalances. It is crucial in a garden scenario not to get hung up over the constant but small amount of apple drop from flower set through to harvesting.

Natural drop will occur when the fruit becomes overripe and past its prime picking time. A natural hydrocarbon gas called ethylene, a ripening hormone, is produced, causing an abscission layer to form; it's very similar to a scab between the fruit stalk and the branch; this is why sometimes you will experience fruit that will come off with just a light touch and another time will have to be picked off with some force.

This gas is also what is used to ripen other crops artificially. Tomato, avocado, apple, melon peach, kiwi, and banana are some of the crops that are ripened this way.

In Marden Kent in the early eighties, an incident concerning the ripening of avocados caused us fruit farmers to resurrect the old Micheal Cain phrase"your only supposed to blow the Bl**dy doors off." what had happened was that the inflammable gas level got to the critical concentration and a source of ignition caused the store to explode doing just what we all joked about and blew avocados all over the place, as far as I'm aware no one but their pride was hurt, so we all got a laugh. I'm told that avocado stones flew like cannonballs all over the town. Seriously though, we all went back to our own stores and checked our levels; I have no idea how I would have explained to my Boss how four hundred tons of apples got to be spread all over the village if ours had exploded. Free cider for everyone rather than guacamole.

Don't worry too much; a few pieces of fruit in your fridge won't cause anything like that.

I hope spring is good for you all, if you garden or not.

Cheers