UKH

Damsons I mean. Saw the first of this season just earlier on the trees that stand along one of my local paths. Last year seemed like a bumper crop. It will be interesting to see how the long wet Winter/Spring has affected things.

Seen the first this week, much smaller than the ones in your photo but the ones I saw were in NW Scotland.

I don't know if this affects damsons but greengages, which are closely related, have I've read good years and sometime have a year where they produce little fruit.

Dave

Dads had to prop up the branches of his plum tree as they are so laden down with fruit.

Massive loss at blossom > viable fruit stage on all our cherries and all but one plum tree.  Fruits appeared but shrivelled and fell.  Cold and rain are prime suspects.  Sloes are good as always. My damson orchard is to young and not fruiting yet.

Hedgerow damsons look piss poor locally.  I need to check out a couple of other locations…

Apples look good, and a bumper crop of alpine strawberries beside various paths. Might get our first crop of our medlar tree - lots of fruit on it.

I'm sorry but I chortled when I read this. There must be something wrong with my mind.

Yes, I do recall the hawthorn blossom was much less exuberant than last year, as you say probably due to the relatively poor weather

I have a 'mini orchard' - two small shrubs in pots which actually produce apples that I ate last year. They seem to be doing OK again.

I've seen lots of leaves about but not actual berries yet

Not just you,I was about to have a rummage until I clicked on and saw the tree.

And there's me thinking I'd carefully worded it too!

On the west coast of Scotland our garden alpines are well laden already; haven’t seen any in the wild yet. Found several delicious clumps of plump and ripe blaeberries yesterday, which was bizarrely early.

We have a 20 year old victoria plum tree. Most years I have to pull off about 3/4 of the plums and still pick masses of fruit which feeds the neighbours as well. This year almost no plums at all. Vics always flower early and this year that was disastrous, as there were no pollinators around when the blossom was out

I'm looking forward to the annual thread about this year being a bumper year for blackberries. I think there's been one every year for the last 15 years.

The photo below is a very small section of a 500m long ribbon of alpine strawberries along a track somewhere near Blanchland.

I’d trade the exact location in return for a source of cloudberries…

I've seen plenty of places with cloudberries growing, they're fairly common high up in the Dales and North Pennines. I used to think it was a kind of ivy until I found out what the leaves really are. I've never seen berries though.

I think it’s the berries he’s after! They seem to fruit only rarely for the quantity of leaves that are around once you get your eye in. Best I’ve found was a huge patch of berries on Beinn a Ghlo. Always pleasing to stumble upon even a single one though.

That’s quite the patch!

I’ve never seen anything like it.  

They’ve sprung up adjacent to a forest track where the forest to the north has just been clear felled.  The little ones took about an hour to walk the 1/2 km stretch given the rich pickings, which rather messed up my planned timings for the day…

Very disappointing this year, just three damsons on the tree, the plum tree is even worse - strong cold winds at just the wrong time for the blossom. On the other hand, the mulberry is completely laden. Apple trees so so 

Are alpine strawberries the same as the wild strawbs that grow in the UK?

Bet your mum is happy though...

We had around 60kg from our tree 2 years ago, then last year about half that (but much sweeter plums) this year it looks like we'll be lucky to get any at all. We also have a damson tree (and several offshoots that are getting well-established) but it never seems to produce much.

At the risk of sounding too risqué I hope your plums have a good year!

I cant comment on plums but my cherries have been absolutely amazing this year. We have had loads which have grown large and sweets with plenty for me and my avian visitors.

Green. No idea if that's normal or not , they're my Dad's trees. One appears to be poorly though, but it never produced well - even with thinning out they'd always go mouldy.

Cherries barely struck after flowering. I have 5 on the entire tree which myself and a bullfinch visit daily to check on their progress 

By the side of a path in my local wood I counted 9 wild cherry trees all absolutely full of cherries. There were more trees further into the wood. I think they were planted for the local wildlife but up to now they don’t seem to have found them. 

That’s my understanding. I often think there’s as much flavour in one of these as in one supermarket strawberry.  My attempts to cultivate a large quantity have been foiled by rabbits however.  

Shame. We have a 6 year old tree, probably 3 x 3 mtre canopy. I would guess 2kg in total harvest

We had similar problem with our apples. Of three cordons, one had no blossom and therefore no fruit, the other two had blossom but poor fruit developement (shrivelled and fell). As it stands one tree has two v. small apples and the other four reasonable ones. I suspect cold and rain and lack of pollenators, though the two worst hit suffered from rose aphid last year which may have weakened them (especially the one that didn't blossom)

I hope you let the bullfinch have fair dibs