Loquat « Putney Farm

The new arrivals are coming fast here at the farm. Another warm stretch brought out the Black Tartarian cherries, along with a few Vans. The rest of the Vans will be ready in a few days and the Bings should be ripe in a week or two. We love all the cherries but the small sweet/sour Tartarians are a real treat. We got them as part of a grafted “pollinator” tree, but the fruit turned out to be a real bonus. We like to cook and mix drinks with cherries, but we usually eat the first batch out of hand. This bowl of cherries is no exception.

Meanwhile, the lavender is just starting to pop. That means bees, bees and more bees. The bees, honeybees and native bees, simply love the lavender. They will work the lavender all summer and the flowers will move and buzz all day when the sun is out. It never, never gets old- for us, or the bees.

And we have loquats. Lots of loquats. We need to do something with them (marmalade?) this year. We know they are getting ripe, as the woodpeckers and squirrels come calling for the fruit. The woodpeckers are cool, the squirrels, not so much. The woodpeckers just take ripe fruit, we can live with that. The squirrels take a bite and drop the unripe fruit. Varmint.

Otherwise, the garden and orchard are always in (slow) motion. Plenty of blueberries and strawberries. Raspberries will be ready tomorrow. The figs are ripening. Apples, pears, peaches and nectarines are all growing, and probably need thinning. The nasturtiums and squash are in bloom and there are tiny yellow flowers on the tomatoes. The eggplant even recovered from a serious beating (eating?) by the snails. And the roses are still roses. Have a few…