Bumper harvest of apples and pumpkins

THIS year has delivered a bumper apple harvest, despite the drought and record-breaking hot summer, experts have said.

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The National Trust is reporting bumper crops of orchard fruit as well as pumpkins in its gardens - in marked contrast to last year when wet weather reduced fruit harvests and slugs and snails decimated squash crops at sites including Kingston Lacey in Dorset, and Dunham Massey, near Manchester.

The conservation charity puts the unusually abundant apple and pumpkin harvest down to a combination of weather factors including last year’s wet conditions, the warm and dry spring and plenty of sun this summer.

Although crops are ripening weeks earlier than normal after the sunny summer, the Trust adds pumpkins will still be good for Halloween with careful storage.

And the “near-perfect” growing conditions have led to a surge in requests to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) to identify “mystery” apple varieties growing in domestic gardens and community orchards.

The RHS said it had received more than 500 mystery apples this month alone to be analysed through its fruit identification service, significantly more than in previous year - and with one sample even arriving after hours over the fence at the charity's garden at Wisley.