Apples
A mast year is a year in which a tree bears an unusually bounteous crop of nuts or seeds and this term can also be used for fruit trees. 2025 has certainly been a remarkable year for apples here in Great Britain - a genuine mast year. Several newspapers have reported as much and people with apple trees in their gardens agree that this year has been quite special. We have five old apple trees in our garden which we have looked out upon for thirty six years. Throughout that time, the four big trees have given us lots of green cooking apples each autumn. But this year something very odd has happened because the apples that hang from those selfsame trees have turned red for the very first time. (see picture above) Scientists might explain that perfect growing conditions with plenty of summer sunshine will often trigger much greater production of a red pigment called anthocyanin and that seems to be what has happened to our apples. In all previous years, our apples have been so t...