Big thumbs up for the wine...
One of the most exciting aspects of working in the fruit and veg department at Wisley is meeting the public and hearing how passionate you are about growing your own food and drink.
Recently my team has been involved with Berry Weekend at Wisley where the wine from our vineyard was tasted by our most severe critics....You! And you loved it with fantastic comments - we have practically sold out. Just a few bottles of the 2008 vintage left. However, we are expecting the 2009 vintage in soon, so don't panic.
We have also put on a display of gooseberries and redcurrants at the RHS Tatton flower show this month. We were on a PR mission to let people know how delicious a ripe, sweet gooseberry tastes and the comments from the visitors to the show were wonderful. We have about 180 gooseberries in our national collection at Wisley, and the visitors loved looking at the range of colours and sizes that we had on display.
Back at Wisley, the teams' horticultural skills have been tested this season beyond growing fruit and veg as we have also turned our hands to growing flowers.
We have created a sunflower maze on the site of the old glasshouse for the school summer holidays and we've had great fun designing the pattern for this year. The central feature is going to be a castle on a raised platform so that you can look down over a sea of nodding, yellow flowers. It is a beautiful scene and children will love it.
It is not just the summer heat and drought that has got me in the mood for Mediterranean gardening this year - I've been summer pruning our cordon grape vines by pruning the new growth back to five leaves or three leaves past a bunch of grapes.
We have a huge collection of figs at Wisley and we have just pruned the new growth on these back to five leaves to encourage fruit for next year which will form in the tips of the new shoots. As a general rule, figs that are larger than pea size will not make it through the winter so can be removed, smaller ones should ripen in the following season. The most hardy type with delicious fruit is 'Brown Turkey'.