Primavera peeps through Mediterranean winter

Spring is definitely in the air, in the garden and surrounding land blossom adorns the branches of the cherry trees and the Hoopoe is claiming territory ready for the breeding season.

Got a head start in the vegetable beds by visiting the supermarket and buying a packet of Thai organic vegetables which were rapidly approaching their sell by date. The bag contained garlic, shallots and lemon grass which I rooted before planting out in the raised beds. The Garlic and shallots are thriving. It might still be a bit cool for the lemon grass but well worth a punt.

It was March the 8th. last year that heavy snowfalls blanketed L'Alt Empordà wiping out power supplies for several days. Hopefully we haven't jumped the gun.

Stratification of stone fruit

Cold weather is rather unusually welcome at this time of year in the Mediterranean garden. Freezing temperatures help control bugs and diseases amongst the plants. They also provide an important service to growers of stone crop fruit and nut trees, after shedding their seeds the pits (or stone) of fruit and nuts need to go through a period of stratification, intense cold, before the seed is able to germinate.

Once the seed has grown to a tree the cold spell is again important. This is the reason fruit and nut orchards are at risk from rising winter average winter temperatures; without sufficient number of cold days for that particular variety the fruit will not set.

When you pick your apricot, peach, nectarine, plum, or cherry on a sunny summer day perhaps you should remember that early cold spell with a little more affection.

Tonight temperatures will range from freezing on the Mediterranean coast to -15C in the Pyrenées just a few miles away. We once recorded temperatures of -12C in our Mediterranean garden though a thick coat of mulch meant almost all of our plants survived.

Last year the cold spell was a little later falling at the beginning of March resulting in the loss of our cherry and Nispera / Loquat crop.

Cherry ripe

My cherry tree is vigorous though hardly fruitful the single fruit you can see near the centre of the photograph is the entire crop for this year. It equals last years less than abundant crop, though it is at least carried on a different stem searching for the fruit is half the fun. There are abundant cherry trees in the neighbourhood and the tree was covered in blossom in early spring, maybe the late cold spell made the blossom drop a little to early for fruit.  I really raised this tree because of its foliage, and intend to propagate others from it in the future. In fact the solitary cherry from last years crop was tasted by Carol and promptly dispatched to the spittoon because of its bitter taste. Possibly one cherry is all you need.

Yesterday I posted about celery being of benefit to Gout sufferers well cherries too are beneficial helping purge the uric acid from your system. 

Loosing one´s cherry

"See the tree, how big it's grown
but friend it hasn't been too long
it wasn't big...
The first day that she planted,
it was just a twig"

Bobby Russell

Loosing my cherry would I think be a traumatic experience. The tiny red seedling we found two years ago and subsequently planted behind the lavenders at the the front of the house has now reached 6´in height. It has a nice open shape almost espalier like though it will need pruning soon. In mid March the tree produced a series of single white flowers which appeared at the same time as a cold spell occurred which threatened the local cherry producers´ crop. At a commercial level cherries are very important to the local economy, and the growers response to the weather, was to spray the plants with a waxy foam to protect the newly set fruit buds.
Our plant being red, looks to be an ornamental variety and did not appear to have set fruit. Cherry fruit buds are popular with the finches and it is possible that they could account for any fruit that did set.

A few days ago I found a single fruit bud had formed, already bright red though it is not much bigger than a large pea. And so it is that each morning I check the development of the solitary cherry, if it turns out to be an edible variety it will be the tastiest cherry in the world. Though with so many birds around it may not be us doing the tasting!

Blustery Days

This was the effect of wind burn on our Cherry tree Karzan even though we planted it in a spot that is sheltered from the prevailing wind the wind somehow prevailed and caused this damage.
The tree responded by shedding most of it's leaves. Buds on the branches look plump and healthy so it should get back to it's former glory next spring.

I have lost count of the number of fence repairs we have carried out to rectify wind damage. We thought that as we had a shelter belt of trees across the village, they would lift the wind high above our heads but it obviously isn't enough for this particular wind.

We will have to utilise several layers of planting to soften and filter the wind as solid or sheet materials would not withstand the constant battering from the gusts of wind. We have planted a line of Pomegranate as they seem to stand well at the edge of nearby farm land, and inside that line we have planted young olive trees. The young plants should be more robust and establish better than more developed trees and shrubs. The downside of that is the wait until they are a significant size.

Cherry Karzan

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Cherry blossom time and right on cue

Cherry blossom time

The flowering cherry tree ´Karzan´ is now opening it´s flower buds three weeks behind similar trees in the neighbourhood. Could it be that it has been waiting for Carol´s arrival tommorow or is it just a co-incidence that she planted it?