Pelion Fruit paradise

One of the delightful qualities of this wonderful area where we have the Kalikalos living-learning Centres is the abundant fruit that is everywhere for the picking.

When we arrive in mid May to open up our Centres and erect our outdoor group spaces, there are apricots and plums. Then in mid June come the cherries. First the amazing black ones and then the red-orangish ones. Until you have had a big plump black cherry from one of the Pilion cherry trees which abound in the Pelion forest, you havent really tasted a cherry. Round about mid July the cherries are finished and then come the peaches and nectarines soon after joined by plums and then pears. And all through July and early August our mulberry tree is producing in quantity. I'm always amazed at just how much fruit one tree produces.



We sited one of our yurts right under our mulberry tree, not realising that the mulberries dropping would stain it royally. They did, but we now have a net for catching the mulberries and guiding them down into a bucket where we can go out at breakfast time and scoop them up, wash them and eat them on Greek yoghurt with honey. Food for the gods! As I child I sang "round and round the mulberry bush", never knowing that actually there was such a thing as a mulberry and it grows, not on a bush, but a solid shade tree. Wish we had more of them. They taste a bit like a black raspberry, but sweeter and juicier.

Around mid August the figs are ready. We have both green and black (dark purple actually) figs in this area. I prefer by far the black ones, and generally on my way down to the beach I gorge myself on them from the many trees beside the road to Ag Ioannis.

In early September the figs give way to the grapes and apples. Pelion is the main apple growing area for Greece, but I'm sad to report that the farmers confine themselves to just two species: a red delicious which is anything but, and a green apple, also nothing to rave about. Some enterprising person could introduce the Cox orange pippin, the Macintosh and the Bramleys to Greece and make a packet.

The grapes are prolific. I planted a few vines to climb up the roof of our covered patio at the Anilio campus in 2004 and this year there are so many grapes that we have had to prune heavily the vines to keep them from snapping off. Wish we had a juicer, we could have had buckets of grape juice. And if only we knew how to make wine.

The patio at the Kissos campus is covered with Kiwi fruit--yes they do grow well in Greece. However, they dont ripen till November, by which time we'll have closed up shop for the season, and somebody else will be enjoying them.

What amazing riches of fruit we have here! I wish I had photos of more than just the three trees you see above. I could show you more photos of pear, fig, grape, plum, cherry and mulberry trees laden with fruit. The area is truly a fruit paradise!

Jock Millenson, Kissos Focaliser