The Grounded Orchardist

The Quince are looking amazing, picture perfect in fact. There are lots of fruit and they are naturally perfectly spaced out. 

It’s great news but that puts the pressure on a bit. Quince trees are VERY thirsty and the weather is not looking like we are getting rain. Assuming we will get proper rain at some point, it’s important I start irrigating them so that when the rain comes the fruit doesn’t split. Quince go mouldy very quickly when they split and they’re then no good to anybody.

It’s not necessarily a case of watering for the tree as such, but so that there isn’t a sudden surge of water when the rains do come. This is what would cause the fruit to split. Too much sudden water and the fruit can’t take it all.

Sadly this row does not have irrigation but it also doesn’t have bare earth underneath. So any water is being conserved and not evaporating, running off or dried off by winds. So, I need to come up with some irrigation on this row and a plan to consistently water. For the home grower this could be as simple as a long soak with a hose or a good few buckets of water every two to three days.

Fingers crossed I can stop them splitting, get them to a good size, put in ugly branch supports to help with the weight and give a good crop to the Chefs.🤞🙂

Sorry for the blurry pic but I was in a rush!