Meadow Lodge Farm

 Having watched the trees come into blossom, then the fruit start to appear, we are now seeing the apples and pears start to swell.  We appear to have a good crop of pears and Cox apples but without having been sprayed, some of the other apples have succumbed to disease and pests which we expected.  We hope to have a visit from a local  representative of the  Apple and Orchard Association  next week to help us identify the fruit and plan the management of the orchards.   They knew Mr Wallis and his orchards well and apparently know where most of the apples are in the orchards and also the pears and plums  We have started picking some of the plums now and sold16 trays to a local farmer/supplier. They were also popular with customers of Oxholme Farm and sold out with hours of them being on sale! 

 This week  we noticed our first plum crop was ripening which we believe to be the Herman variety. We have about 8 trees so Richard and Julianne picked these last evening and got about 16 x 12 lb trays. Surprisingly the quality appeared quite good with few damaged or bad ones. We are selling a few via Oxholme Farm shop and a farmer/wholesaler Richard knows,offered to take and sell the rest!  I also saved a few to make our first home made jam from our produce - plum and cinnamon.