Tuesday 20 June 2017

What Can Be More Peachy Than Apricots?

The sweetness of Prunus Genus.

As you know our area abounds with fruit and not only fruit that tastes better once it's morphed into a liquid. Grapes are omnipresent but fruit trees are too.

Apricots, even though there are a few trees about are more of a rareness and when anyone offers for you to pick theirs, you don't say no. If not eaten as they are, making homemade apricot jam and doling it out liberally on buttered bread seems just fine.

These apricot trees were grown from pips buried in the ground about ten years ago. Left to their own devices, climes and circumstances, they are as organic as can be and surprisingly never befallen by any of bugs doing the social rounds. Oh, and by the way, the branches are bent over from the many apricots clinging to them.

Imagine a tree growing from a pip? After I heard this, I put those four pips I had managed to conjure up ( having tasted four apricots ) safely in my hand and I took care where to dispose them in our garden. With our usual welcome mat rolled out to all and any bees, I see good things ahead.

Reading up on the family connections of peaches and apricots I was amazed to learn that cherries are part of that family: Prunus Genus.. Makes sense when you consider their sweet taste.

Our local vineyards are littered with fruit trees at either the start of the vines or on the edges of them, which makes me wonder whether all those years ago, the men and women tending to the vineyards unwittingly planted their own fruit trees after lunch?

Along the one side of our house would be a fantastic place to start a mixed fruit yard...apricots, cherries and even though I know it sounds crazy, I'll try an avocado pip too. Avocados are my favourite fruit and as the temperature does get hotter and hotter every year, they might just like our neck of the woods and settle in.

The next few days will be a treat...

Biggi

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