The nights may be drawing in and the days becoming chillier, but there is cheering news from some of the UK’s best loved orchards and walled gardens: a bumper crop of apples and pumpkins.
Fruit and squashes have ripened weeks earlier than normal in many places and yields are higher thanks to near-ideal conditions, including 2024’s wet weather followed by a warm and dry spring and plenty of summer sun this year.
It is a stark contrast to last autumn, when wet weather boosted slug and snail numbers, resulting in pumpkin and squash crops being wrecked.
The National Trust’s plant health and sustainability consultant, Rebecca Bevan, said: “Climate change has brought us some very challenging growing conditions over recent years with extremes of wet and dry weather and many storms.
“It’s heartening that sometimes the conditions lead to good outcomes and fruit harvests are a success story for 2025.”
At Cotehele in Cornwall, for example, where its “mother orchard” is home to more than 100 varieties of apple trees, thousands of pieces of fruit have been produced far earlier than expected this year.
The head gardener, David Bouch, said: “The warm, mild spring resulted in bountiful blossom and despite the summer’s record-breaking temperatures we have had an amazing crop of apples.
“A month ago, I wasn’t overly confident because the fruit was very small which is usually the case in very dry summers, but the apples have swollen quickly over the last couple of weeks thanks to the rain we’ve had.”
At Buckland Abbey near Plymouth in Devon, the kitchen garden is overflowing with squash and pumpkins. Its head gardener, Sam Brown, said: “We have about 50% more squash and pumpkins than usual. We’d normally harvest them in mid-October but are about to start now.”
In north Wales, a bumper crop of vintage apples, including St Cecilia and King of the Pippins, has been reported this year at Erddig Hall. Its head gardener, Andrew Degg, said: “Usually, we pick about 2 tonnes and this year we are on target for 4 tonnes.”
The head gardener at Hughenden in Buckinghamshire, Claire Primett, said: “Typically 40% of the trees fruit each year, but this year it is almost double that.”
At The Vyne in Hampshire, a former Tudor palace, the aptly named Frogmore Prolific apple is doing exceptionally well, as are the Autumn Pearmain and Golden Reinette varieties.
It has also been a good year for apples and pears in the north of England. At Beningbrough Hall in North Yorkshire its Irish Peach tree normally produces just one or two apples, but this year there have been 40.
At Sissinghurst in Kent, heritage pumpkin varieties such as Marina di Chioggia and Rouge Vif d’Etampes are thriving.
Its gardener, Olivia Steed-Mundin, said: “They have loved the heat over the summer. Some are already ripe, and they store beautifully for up to six months if cured [hardened] properly.
“This can be done by placing them in a dry, sunny and warm environment for a few weeks. A greenhouse or sunny windowsill is ideal. After that they should be stored in dry, coolish conditions for long-term storage.”
