Fruit and Nuts

The dream of walking up the front path nibbling on fruit and nuts is coming true. And nibbling is the right word for it. No gorging this year yet, but sometimes the things you grow in the garden are even more special because of their scarcity.

3 Hazelnuts
I noticed these hazelnuts weeks ago, and have loved watching them toast up to a gorgeous hazelnutty orange brown.

These three nuts are the only offspring from five trees, so they qualify as miracles. I'll have to figure out what makes hazelnuts fruit more (or is that nut more?), and I'll have to work out when to harvest them too. Right now I'm happy enough admiring them, but one day I'd like to eat them. I think I'll write a chocolate cake recipe that finishes up with "toast exactly three hazelnuts, chop them finely, sprinkle over the wet chocolate icing, and eat immediately."

9 Damsons
Three still left on the tree, starting to split after all the recent rain. The other six eaten on the way down to the mail box. They are yellow-fleshed, tart, and the flesh clings for dear life onto the stone; sucking the stone is a bit like sucking a really sour lolly. Nice.

1 Peach
Yes, just one, from two trees, but what a peach! It was an unplanned picking, prompted by a scary thought: what if someone passing by notices it and absentmindedly plucks it and eats it? That's just the sort of thing I'd do, so I quickly picked it and ate it before anyone else could. I almost forgot to take a photo. Small, sticky, sweet and very very peachy. I'm really glad it didn't get stolen.

6 Orangeberries
The orangeberry carpet fruited for about five minutes a few weeks ago. I ate all six orangeberries in one go, and didn't stop to take a photo. They looked like pale orange raspberries, and tasted a bit like plum, a bit like apricot and a bit tropical. I would be thrilled to get a big crop next year -- they would make an amazing jam I reckon.

0 (yes zero) almonds, currants, passionfruit
The almond tree is healthy and leafy, so let's hope it does some nutting next year. The currants did give a wee bit of fruit -- but it all got eaten by a tenacious blackbird who set up shop on the power pole and swooped in and out all day, stripping the plants. I did my share of yelling and broom waving, but it just looked at me with that "what a crazy lady" look and ate all the currants.
The single passionfruit flower dropped off the vine before it set fruit. Not enough hummingbird action maybe.

Plenty to come

Slowly, surely, the blackberries ripen. There will be enough for a pie -- hopefully without a blackbird in it.

Guavas, starting as tiny elegant fireworks, morphing into goofy stars, and bulking up into pop-in-your-mouth tropical snacks.

The Chilean guavas have started to fill the very front border. This year there are hundreds of little baubles, plumping up, but still too tart to eat. The birds don't seem to be interested in them, and neither do the passers by, so I should get enough to make a jar or two of jam.

Dozens of crab apples this year. Last year the crop looked amazing, but every crab apple was black inside -- a lack of calcium apparently. I've been putting crushed eggshells around the base of the tree, and also giving it comfrey leaves, and so far, so good. There's jelly on the menu -- one of my very favourite things.

Can't resist another brag about the hazelnuts. Only three, but so so beautiful, so hopeful, so exciting.

What's exciting you in your garden? I'd love to know.