Pear Envy

Doc and I are trying to keep up with the harvest and it feels good to wander back up to the house with a large trug laden with our own produce.   Wandering up and down the garden is all I can do at the moment because I still am finding walking a challenge – and our plot is inconveniently on a hillside!  5 months ago I experienced a stress fracture in my left foot and although the fracture has healed, I am still hobbling about in pain.  Complications have set in and I have no idea when I will be fit again.  Thank goodness for Doc’s support, he is literally a tower of strength.  We always thought we made a good team.  He starts a job and I finish it or I start a job and he finishes it!  He is relishing the extra time he spends in the garden, having recently reduced his day job to half time.  He is outside in the fresh air most days, doing something or other - and of course playing golf!

Anyway, I can manage the harvesting (apart from the runner beans in the high reaches of the cane framework!) and I particularly love picking juicy, ripe tomatoes which have been warmed by the sunshine. Everything is at the peak of freshness and tastes far better than anything you can buy in the shops. 

Not everything is doing well– and I don’t just mean the cucumbers.  We seem unable to grow a decent pear tree, let alone encourage one to bear any fruit.  When we moved here, there was an old pear tree but we did not know the variety.  It was huge, far too huge to ever harvest fruit from it.  However, this was an irrelevance because even if it occasionally managed to grow fruitlets they always fell to the ground before growing to any appreciable size and it always looked tatty and listless.  We have since had this tree felled and Doc plans to build a fruit cage in its place.

A few years ago, we invested in 3 new pear trees for the orchard – a Conference, a Concorde and an Onward.  None of them can do anything but struggle.  They have weak, spindly branches and all show bright orange spots on the leaves in summer and autumn.   As for fruit, the Onward is boasting a pair of pears, but they are so small I fear they will blow off in a gust of wind!  No chance of pear and walnut tart, I am afraid.

The orange spots are a rust fungus which feeds on the host plant over an extended period, without killing it. It is not able to survive on dead plant material.  Pear trees are deciduous so it must either alternate with a different, perennial host such as a Juniper tree, or produce resting spores to pass the dormant season.

A common alternative host for the fungus is a Juniper tree and yes, you’ve guessed it, our neighbour has a Juniper tree!  Non-chemical controls, like removing infected areas of the tree and dead leaves are unlikely to be effective for us because the spores can easily be blown backwards and forwards, across the garden hedge.  We could consider an alternative site for a pear tree but we don’t have anywhere suitable.

If we really want to enjoy a juicy, home grown pear then I think we would have to resort to chemical control of this pest.  We are still thinking about this one.  Perhaps we will have to resign ourselves to becoming a pear-free zone......

Still, there are lots of plant species we can grow.  Until a free packet of seeds prompted an experiment, we did not think our garden would suit Morning Glory.  They are an annual climber and need warmth, masses of sunshine and a sheltered spot.  We have given them a nice arch with a south facing aspect.  However, it does get windy and it was very cold in the spring.  I raised the plants in the greenhouse and when I finally plucked up courage to set them free in the garden, they sat and sulked for several weeks.  Our patience is rewarded though because they look lovely at the moment.  They are such a welcome splash of colour in August, a real bonus, and they look much nicer than the pear trees!