Down on the Allotment

Matron grows vegetables and fruit in a Hampshire garden. I've been growing veggies since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Some traditional varieties and old favourites as well as new ideas. I share my garden with my allotment assistant Daisy the Labrador. On Twitter as @MatronsVeggies

Friday, August 08, 2008

One of my Favourite Places

I went to the RHS Gardens at Wisley, Surrey today. This time of year the fruit orchard is one of my most favourite places to be. Thousands of varieties of apples and plums, a real treasure chest of English fruit growing. There is an old apple tree here which can be traced back to a cutting taken from Sir Isaac Newton's original apple tree. Yes that one..you know.. the gravity thing....
Elsewhere in the gardens there is a maize maze. On display here are scarecrows which were made by schoolchildren for a competition at the Hampton Court flower show a couple of weeks ago. A great display.
But we had more important business on our minds. SCRUMPING!! Some of the earlier varieties of plums and gages were just so perfectly ripe, it would have been criminal not to sample them. Acres and acres of different varieties of fruit. Juicy, succulent, sweet.. dripping down your chin sweet actually.
We sampled to our heart's content.
We definitely got our 5 portions of fruit and veg today!
I must return in a couple more weeks to sample the later varieties which were not quite ripe yet. One of my all time favourite plums (not pictured here) is called Thames Gage. If you ever are in the market to buy a plum tree, please consider this one. Huge, peach sized yellow fruit with a pink speckling over it, and as sweet as sweet can be. I'll be back.

6 Comments:

At 6:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can you just pick as many as you like or just the ones you can eat, or the ones that have fallen?
I've never been to the Wisley orchard at this time of year so the reality of acres of ripe fruit never occurred to me. I've a vision of hordes descending with carrier bags :-)

 
At 8:17 PM, Blogger Kath said...

What a fabulous day out - wish I'd been there!

 
At 9:12 PM, Blogger Matron said...

easy gardener - ssshhhhhh! that's why it's called scrumping!

 
At 9:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aaaaaargggghhh.....Bit slow :-o

 
At 11:03 AM, Blogger BilboWaggins said...

I know you don't "do" flowers but I love the scarecrow picture, is that a bed of Rudbekia they're guarding? Haven't been to Wisley for ages and now we live 350 miles away it's unlikely I will return in the near future so thanks for the lovely images from a fabulous place. Bilbo

 
At 1:10 PM, Blogger this is my patch said...

Never been to Wisley, not far from me either? Great time of year to go, I love plums and would quite happily scrump a few. I saw the scarecrows at Hampton Court this year, they seem to be all the rage. x

 

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