Cherry Juice and Gout?

Sweetheart Cherry

I read in The Times a letter, which said that cherry juice cured gout. There are quite a few articles on the web, but no research trials that I located. Expensive – ultimate anti-toxicant ?

Does anyone do serious research on all these wonder fruits?

I think that marketing has led to blueberries taking over from black currants, which to my mind are much nicer and need to be rediscovered.

Helen Self

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2014: Plague of Codling Moth on Apples, Strange Year for Pears

Codling moth damage

I have a plague of codling moths on a biblical scale. Does anyone else have the same problem?

I think the reason is that in my orchard I did not put out the pheromone traps until early July – a month or more later than usual – and this coupled with the early season has meant they were ineffective. Although in a normal year there may be only two or three male moths in each trap all season.

So where have all these moths come from, bearing in mind that there was little damage last year. During this summer the prevailing winds have been in the south east or east south east, this is very unusual; the prevailing winds are normally in the south west. My theory is they have come over from the continent on the prevailing winds.

The espalier apples have come off the worst, the fruit being more exposed, in particular Mère de Ménage and A. W. Barnes. Over half the crop has been lost already and there are still more to drop off.

The season is a strange one, which has affected the pears as well. Yet it was pretty similar to last year, in that little happened before July, a blistering July then again little happened. I noted last year that Conference and Concorde stopped growing in very early September, while normally they would keep on growing to about the end of September, especially last year as the season was very late. This year Beth, Clapp’s Favorite and Marguerite Marillat stopped growing at the very beginning of August despite watering, in fact the watering was a waste of money. Beth just sat there for a month getting nice and golden and the Clapps’ got more colorful – were they responding to just one real month of pear growing weather. July 2013 and July 2014 were only good for the sun worshippers in my opinion and very little help to gardeners.

Adrian Baggaley

Marguerite Marillat pears

Photographs kindly supplied by Adrian Baggaley

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Pruning my Raspberries?

I have a newish raspberry patch in its first season of full vigour which has six different varieties. For several of the varieties, the new canes have grown to nearly eight feet high.

I’ve tied them in but should I cut them off now at five or six feet or leave them as they are?

Janet Galpin

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