How they grow

Our apple tree usually starts producing edible apples on 15 July, much earlier than most trees, and continues for a month. Last year it started several days earlier and continued for six weeks. Normally at this time of year I spend hours collecting, processing and preserving the 10, 20, 30 kg that the tree can produce in a day. So far this year we have had five apples, all shared with blackbirds. There are some more still ripening on the tree but, compensating for our largest ever harvest last year, very few.

Here are the same four apples five weeks and seven-and-a-half weeks ago.