One of my Favourite Places

I went to the RHS Gardens at Wisley, Surrey today. This time of year the fruit orchard is one of my most favourite places to be. Thousands of varieties of apples and plums, a real treasure chest of English fruit growing. There is an old apple tree here which can be traced back to a cutting taken from Sir Isaac Newton's original apple tree. Yes that one..you know.. the gravity thing....

Elsewhere in the gardens there is a maize maze. On display here are scarecrows which were made by schoolchildren for a competition at the Hampton Court flower show a couple of weeks ago. A great display.

But we had more important business on our minds. SCRUMPING!! Some of the earlier varieties of plums and gages were just so perfectly ripe, it would have been criminal not to sample them. Acres and acres of different varieties of fruit. Juicy, succulent, sweet.. dripping down your chin sweet actually.

We sampled to our heart's content.

We definitely got our 5 portions of fruit and veg today!

I must return in a couple more weeks to sample the later varieties which were not quite ripe yet. One of my all time favourite plums (not pictured here) is called Thames Gage. If you ever are in the market to buy a plum tree, please consider this one. Huge, peach sized yellow fruit with a pink speckling over it, and as sweet as sweet can be. I'll be back.