In my opinion, it is highly unlikely that any cultivar will fruit regularly under UK conditions. I saw the specimen in the Chelsea Physic Garden when it was in fruit in 2006, and was surprised to see such a respectable crop. I do not know its cultivar name.

I have a database of about 1000 cultivars, assembled when writing my book ‘Olive Oil’ (Dorling Kindersley, 2006). The cultivar which produces ripe olives in the shortest number of days (and thus a possible choice for UK conditions) is ‘Frantoio’, also from Tuscany, but there are parts of Italy where it does not ripen before the frosts destroy the immature fruits. I calculate that we would need a rise in average summer temperatures of 6 degrees Celsius before olive-growing in UK became a commercial proposition.

Usually the attacked leaves curl softly around the massed aphids making them invisible initially, shortly after blossom time, and best detected by looking for the presence of ants on the branches heading for the shoot tips. The early appearance of rosy apple aphid is low down under the branches rather than on the tops as with the green aphids.

This year rosy apple aphid is only present on one of my varieties which is not cropping. I usually have to battle with it to limit the number of shrunken apples which are always found near the attacked leaves later in the year.

The Plum Collection at Brogdale is magnificent and a plum gourmet’s Paradise - hundreds of varieties, each with its own individual taste, which varies from year to year, depending on the season.

One particular Summer Friends Day the tasting’s were definitely not up to scratch. The plums were mealy and bland. There had not been any rain in Kent for weeks. During a conversation with Derek Rye at the following Autumn Friends Day he told me that two weeks later the plums were excellent. The reason being that it had rained.

Rain is a prerequisite for a flavour-some plum and excessive rain does not necessarily dampen its flavour; whereas with apple and particularly pears it does. The downside is that excessive rain at ripening time cracks plums. This is why in a wet season a bumper crop is required to spread the moisture uptake. Last year was such a year. Although lots of fruit cracked and went rotten, provided I picked the infected fruit before it infected its neighbour, I still had a superb plum crop. In my orchard cordon plums rarely had a bumper crop as they cracked and went rotten in rainy Nottinghamshire.

Ian does not favour Jubelium, but with me it is an excellent plum - large, free stone, sweet and juicy, about ten days earlier than Victoria but otherwise similar. I planted mine as a maiden whip, trained it as a fan and it succeeded around three years later. The fruits will hang for ages; in fact it hangs on for so long I tire of it. Try it in another form and invest in moth pheromone traps, I suggest.

On Reeve’s Seedling we agree. This is my favourite plum - large, round, freestone, and sweet. A connoisseur’s fruit that is a descendant of the excellent Count Althann’s gage. Unfortunately it is a martyr to bacterial canker on my stiff clay and the days of my superb tree may be numbered. My problem is not plum moth but plum saw fly and as of yet there are no pheromone traps for the amateur grower.

Strawberries were good this year. Blackcurrants are a no show. Oh well, there’s always next year!

Could someone tell me about the much-praised jam, please. What fruit/sugar/water quantities should I use? And is it a pectin-rich fruit, or do I need to use the sugar with pectin?

This area is clearly marked, by name, on the map within the entry leaflet; viz. c200m to the right (ie North) of the Temperate House.

Out of sixteen varieties of plum, gage and damson grown as oblique and upright cordons on St Julian A, I could only recommend about three and these are Giant Prune, Belgian Purple and Bradley’s King damson. As cordons only Belgian Purple was dessert quality.

The mode of restricting growth was to nip new growth back to six leaves when the new growth had reached about a foot long, and nipping any new growth from these to one leaf.

After cropping, summer prune back to three buds or three leaves if the buds in the leaf axils are not prominent. I found that the three buds could well be only blossom buds and no extensions or side growth is possible. The shoot will die the following year after blossoming or fruiting.

My favoured system is to modify cordons by not summer pruning and to pull down the new extension growth - good crops will assist this - to form a weeping tree. An increase in flavour and cropping should be noted the following year, but it does require more room.

Once I have the ‘ribs’ on each arm of the fan all growths from then on are cut back to six to nine inches; any frontal or rear growth is rubbed out. I find this gives me a compact fan suitable for a six foot fence panel. When you get to the top you can cut back to the ribs and start again. Pruning is at my convenience and normally in late winter. I tie in the remaining growth at the same time and seal the cuts to prevent silver leaf. This task could be done soon after fruiting if you wish. Any rampant new growth could be tipped or nipped during the summer, only moderate growth is required.

Plum and pear are rare fruits this year. The fruit set on plum is a complete disaster. All nine varieties grown as half standard shave no fruit, which is a great pity, for we will miss our plum cakes. The only exception is Mirabelle de Nancy which has enough fruit to fill some cups for the coming winter.

Pear is slightly better. Durondeau carries a promising crop, but good croppers, such as Beurré Hardy, Beau Présent have very little fruit and Comtesse de Paris, Louise Bonne of Jersey none at all. Luckily Saint Rémy (Bellisme d’Hiver) has a small crop. This late keeping kitchen variety will have to see us through the coming winter. It is an excellent cooking pear. Some people say the best you can grow over here. Another local cooker Winterrietpeer has no fruit on at all.

Quinces are very shy bearers too this year, but with five full grown trees I will probably have enough to make sufficient jam to get through to the next season. The apple shaped quince does remarkably better then the pear shape quince.

There are promising crops in other fruits. My fig has become a beautiful bush with elegant leaves and at the moment full of fruit. This year the size is large and they look better than in previous years. Over the years I have found a couple of simple but splendid recipes for figs; I made an excellent jam last year.

The crop on apple is a mixed story. Some varieties have plenty of fruit, but the local beauty, Reinette Etoilée, has let me down this year. I noticed that there are more trees without fruit in my cordon collection than in other years, but most of the standard apple trees look very promising.

Small fruit is also doing well. There are good crops of gooseberries and red currants.

Cherries are a success this year. The local Bigareau Napoleon and Hedelfinger Riesenkirchen all have lots of cherries. With four twenty year old standard trees there are enough cherries for the family, friends and the birds. We offer the Merton Premier cherries to the birds; these early ones, which lack flavour, are left on the tree for them. This may be the reason why the birds are not eating every cherry that ripens afterwards.

The late fruit setting in the vines did not cause a problem. All varieties - Regent, Orion, Wurzer, Reichensteiner, Glorie van Boscoop, Muller Thurgau - look just fine. The combination of very wet weather and high temperatures brought mildew, which is very difficult to cure at the moment.

The plant is continuing to grow in exactly the same manner and is now about 3ft 6in. There is no sign of blossom, so I imagine that will not now come till next year. When it does put in an appearance I shall watch it with the greatest interest - at least until - as I now fully expect - it turns out to be a perfectly ordinary raspberry. But, in the meantime, I can’t help harbouring a tiny hope for something else. If something strange appears this Blog will be the first to know!