A berry timely harvest

AS summer leans into autumn and either end of the day anticipates the season to come, I occasionally find myself checking the slowly colouring fruit of the Chilean guava hedge that edges one of the perennial beds.

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I know there might be two months or more until their peak, but anticipation is such a vital pleasure of gardening. Chilean guava (Ugni molinae) is a half-hardy evergreen shrub that produces not the tropical fruit you might find in the supermarket, but an abundance of blueberry-sized, deliciously sweet/sharp berries with a flavour somewhere between kiwi, strawberry, blueberry and a gentle spicy sherbet-iness.

Despite having apparently been Queen Victoria's favourite had it grown in Cornwall's mild climate for her table-Chilean guava is not widely grown in the UK for reasons beyond me. That is slowly changing, however, as home growers catch on to its flavour and late-season maturing.

The timing of the fruit's peak is one of the many pleasures of Chilean guava, coming as it does after blueberries have passed and just as approaching winter could really do with a cheering berry harvest. They ripen slowly, through autumn-resist the temptation to pick early. The deepening of their colour comes before their fullest flavour is realised. Try a few before you pick the rest, to be sure.