Apricots - a personal record

Last year we doubled our apricot production by 50% from one fruit to two fruits. This year it has been a relatively bumper result. There were about twenty fruits growing but the birds and those that dropped before they were ripe left us with eight worthy fruits. 

This year has not been an easy one as many fruit and vegetable growers will attest. It been due to a combination of wet and relatively cool weather, coupled with long periods of overcast conditions. Sunshine has been missing for the most part.

Berry fruit (blackcurrants, gooseberries and raspberries) have been quite modest this year. Redcurrants have been very poor. Stone fruit such as plums, greengages and walnuts look to be very fruitful this year. Hence the apricots.

After a slow start greenhouse plants are doing very well.  The best results outside are the potaoes which were a beneficiary of the wetter conditions although a close eye is needed to check for blight which can also flourish in wet weather. At the moment we are enjoying Charlotte potatoes, digging them as we need them.

Out of season lambs

This morning I scanned the field where the ewes are currently grazing, looking out for our small young dog Zelda who has of late taken herself off to be with the sheep. Milling around the back legs of one of the ewes I saw something small and white, not small and fawn coloured. It was a lamb. This was most unexpected. I went across to check and it had not long been born. It had been licked clean and was suckling, but the afterbirth was still trailing from the rear end of the mother. All looked well. It was a ram lamb and a single. They appeared to be bonding well so there was no need to bring them in.

How did this happen? We had decided not to lamb this year for a number of reasons. The two mature rams we have are kept separate from the ewes and, moreover, not even in adjacent fields to avoid the temptation for them to jump a fence. The answer is that the culprit was a ram lamb (no longer with us) who we kept with the flock longer than we would normally do so. In the past we have castrated ram lambs (this has to be done within 7 days of birth) for this very reason. But in the last few years we have simply separated them out when weaning them, knowing that they were shortly destined for the abattoir.  

We had a closer look at the rest of the ewes and we identified two or three others who looked possibly in lamb. Fortuitously, we have two separate bloodlines within the flock and so hopefully any pregnant ewes are not too closely related to the ram lamb responsible. 

I am now regulalry checking for more surprises. And thinking ahead, contmplating how best to manage tupping in the Autumn.