Today is the Winter Solstice, and I marked it by returning outside to a sunny and mercifully ice-free back garden. Yesterday I turned my attention to our apple trees and today I was pruning our blackcurrants, gooseberries and blueberry bush. These are times when, engaged in gardening, there is room in my thoughts for only the immediate task, interspersed with happy memories of the times when we gardened for a living.
This is not a technical piece - I still consult our two organic gardening reference books, but will not repeat the guidance here. So I will only add that at lunchtime we ate the last stored apple from our 'Scotch Bridget' tree which has had a bumper crop. Light pruning was the order of the day, appropriate feeding will follow in the spring. Both trees grow taller and more fruitful year by alternate year.
