Herb Garden For Medlar Herbs Farming In Garden Farm | Aplus Farms

Meldar herbs farming in garden farm, though it was last in favour in the middle ages, this ancient fruit's older than the bible.

What's a medlar, you may well ask. Indeed, after reading this you may well wonder why a medlar! The medlar is a fruit tree and it's a bit of a curiosity, an edible from a bygone era that was once better known than apple.

Growing Meldar Herbs

It's a small tree (just 3m high and wide) and a member of the rose family (Rosaceae). Its family relationship gives a clue to how it looks: small single white rose-like flowers, thorns, small toothed leaves and fruit shaped like a rosehip or oversized hawthorn with distinct calyces around the base of the fruit.

As a member of the rose family, medlar's closest relatives are the hawthorns (Crataegus spp.) but it bears a similarity to wild roses, loquats, crabapples, Japanese flowering quince and the tough old quince.

• Medlar fruits (usually just called medlars) are russet brown and about 5 - 6cm across with an open base and an apple-like fleshy interior with five seeds. 
• As the seeds are large, there's not a lot of flesh in each fruit.
• They take a long time to ripen, remaining hard through autumn and often into early winter after the first frosts. 
• Ripe fruit is easy to pick or collect as it falls to the ground. 
• Picked fruit can be kept in a cool, airy place until it softens.

Meldar Herbs Farming

What sets medlars aside from other roserelated fruits - and why apples stole a march on them – is that these fruits are hard and astringent unless verging on rotten. As "verging on rotten" sounds unappealing to say the least, there's a special word to describe a ripe medlar fruit: "bletted".

When the fruit has reached the bletted stage and is turning brown it has enough sweetness to be edible and reportedly tastes a little like a pear, though I've never actually tried to eat one. The tartness is due to high levels of malic acid that stop the fruit from being eaten by birds or browsing animals. They even survive possums.

You may be wondering why you would bother with such as tricky customer but that's because we have access to so many fruit trees now it's hard to imagine that there was a time when a medlar was worth growing and eating.

• Medlars were taken to the UK by the Romans and are mentioned in Shakespeare and Chaucer. 
• Indeed, it was Chaucer who, in a typical blunt and colourful turn of phrase, called it "open-arse fruit" due to the shape of its base. 
• As well as eating the bletted fruit raw, lovers of medlars use them to make a beautiful deep-red jelly or paste. 

They also have high pectin levels and are rich in vitamin C. The curiosity around medlars doesn't stop with their slow journey to becoming edible. The fruit has been grown in Europe for thousands of years but probably originated in the region of Turkey or further east in parts of Asia.

Until fairly recently, the medlar was considered to be an only child – the only species in the genus Mespilus. However, some years ago a new species was discovered in the United States and in 1990 it was named M. canescens, commonly called Stern's medlar.

As this is such a rare plant, known only from a few examples in one area of the country - Prairie County, Arkansas - and a long way from the natural distribution of medlars in Europe, it was thought Stern's medlar might be a hybrid of European medlar and an American native, the blueberry hawthorn (Crataegus brachyacantha). With revision of Crataegus and related plants underway, there is also talk of reclassifying the medlar as a Crataegus.

"What sets medlars aside – and why apples stole a march on them - is that they're hard and astringent unless verging on rotten, or “bletted".

Harvesting Medlar Herbs

To include this plant in your orchard as a talking point and perhaps to make a jar of ruby-red medlar jelly, you need to live in an area that enjoys cold winters and mild summers, such as Tasmania, southern parts of Australia, including Melbourne, or highland areas.

• Medlar trees have large green leaves. They need shelter from strong winds and hot sun and are seen at their best growing among other trees or shrubs in part shade. 
• Medlar flowers in spring with single white flowers. It doesn't produce abundant blooms but also doesn't need crosspollination as it is self-fertile. 

If the origins of Stern's medlar as a hybrid are correct, it can be cross-pollinated from Crataegus. The curious small brown fruit forms over summer and ripens in late autumn or winter when it has become soft and bletted. 

The tree has few pest or disease problems and needs no special pruning. Grafted forms are available for sale. The main named varieties available are 'Dutch' and 'Nottingham'. Look for bare-rooted plants for sale in winter or ask your local nursery to order a plant for you.

Scientific Medlar Herbs

• Common name: Medlar 
• Botanical name: Mespilus germanica 
• Family: Rosaceae 
• Aspect & soil: Full sun; well-drained soil 
• Climate: Cool, Mediterranean, temperate 
• Habit: Deciduous tree 
• Propagation: Seed, grafting 
• Difficulty: Moderate