The endless harvest

We're now in April and we're still finding things to eat in our garden. Apples, nuts, a bonus round of raspberries, and some other more obscure fruits like medlars still to come. There are two apple trees. One looks a bit like some kind of pippin - you may have seen Sofia picking them and they're now finished. These apples are delicious and much less buggy than some of our other trees. The other apples look more like a cooking apple but they are ripening a bit later. We have used them a few times including to make an apple pie and the apple and walnut palmiers. The second round of raspberries is a real treat. There aren't a lot of them to go around and Sofia loves them so we've only had a few each.

The chestnuts over the two litre line in the bucket

Chestnuts are now ready but for some reason (neglect?) most of the nuts are a bit runty. We have a few kilograms of good ones but we will probably give these away to someone who will appreciate them more.

Ouch

Chestnuts have a really nasty prickly layer outside the brown shell which you may be more familiar with and they hurt even with leather gardening gloves on. Sofia discovered this for herself when she tried to pick one up. She's now quite scared of them and eyes them suspiciously as she walks past them.

On top of all these, the quinces are ripe and ready to be pasted and of course Sofia was keen to pick some.

The medlars are waiting for the first frost so we can blet them. If you don't know what a medlar is then you're not alone. We'll probably experiment at some stage and put up a post then. Oh, and there's also jerusalem artichokes. And crabapples. And cumquats. And figs. And feijoas.