National Trust Devon gardens enjoy bumper 2025 harvest of apples and pumpkins

National Trust gardeners have witnessed a bumper year, with fruit and vegetable crops ripening and ready for harvest weeks earlier than usual.

Despite the UK experiencing the hottest summer on record, with drought conditions recorded in many places, gardeners are reporting an unusually abundant year for orchard fruit and pumpkins, thought to be the result of a combination of weather factors including last year’s wet conditions, the warm and dry spring and plenty of sun.

This is in stark contrast to last year when wet weather reduced fruit harvests and increased slug and snail activity, resulting in pumpkin and squash crops being decimated.

Rebecca Bevan, the National Trust’s plant health and sustainability consultant, says: “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, however, that sometimes the conditions lead to good outcomes and certainly fruit harvests are a success story for 2025.

“This year’s apple and other tree fruit harvests — including much of the abundance in hedgerows — is likely due to the wet conditions last year which meant trees were in good health when they began to make their flower buds in late summer.  This was followed by a dry and sunny spring resulting in abundant flowers being pollinated by insects and forming fruit.  Lots of sun over the summer was then ideal for ripening the fruit.

“Last year’s wet weather also recharged ground water levels, resulting in the soil staying moister for longer in many areas which probably helped plants like pumpkins get established despite the lack of rain.”
At Buckland Abbey near Plymouth  the apple harvest is also running ahead of schedule, while the kitchen garden is overflowing with squash and pumpkins.  

Head gardener Sam Brown commented: “We have about 50 per cent more squash and pumpkins than usual. We’d normally harvest them in mid-October but are about to start now — around six weeks earlier. There are 20 varieties this year, alongside apples that we’ve been picking since August.”

At Killerton near Exeter, 2025 has been a bumper year for all the trees in the orchards. With plums, apples and pears fairing particularly well.

It was a great year for blossom, with little frosts, rain or wind allowing for more fruit to set.

The apples and pears have matured maybe  two to three weeks earlier than gardeners would normally expect, and the team have had to bring apple picking and pressing forward by a week, so there are apples to produce our estate apple juice and cider.

This year at Cotehele in Cornwall – site of the National Trust’s only Mother Orchard which is home to 125 varieties of apple tree and three other orchards – the trees have produced thousands of apples far earlier than expected.  

Head gardener David Bouch said: “Despite the record-breaking temperatures we have had an amazing crop of apples, due to the combination of last year’s weather and the warm, mild spring resulting in bountiful blossom.  

“Our apples ripened around three weeks early, so we had to make the decision to put on an extra weekend of apple picking to ensure the apples didn’t go to waste with visitors able to pick their own to enjoy at home.

“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 Arlington Court in North Devon, a combination of mild spring and so many pollinators about, the apple trees have done really well this year.

“From just two of our many espaliers we picked over 60 kilos of Devonshire Quarrenden, the best crop we’ve ever had from them. Alongside varieties like Newton Wonder and Veitch’s Perfection, it’s been a great harvest to give to the tea-room, where the apples have gone into compotes, scones, crumbles and more,” said Hannah Phillips, senior gardener.

At Dyrham Park near Bath, the espaliered apples along the sides of the Avenue are looking very plentiful and ripe — and a few weeks earlier than normal. The pears in the orchard are being harvested next week for making into perry — something which normally happens in mid-October.

At Dunster Castle in Somerset,  one of the driest summers for decades has meant they are experiencing some early leaf fall on trees but visitors can still expect the autumn leaf display to be reasonably colourful.

The garden team are beginning to see migratory bird species arriving early, including a recently spotted Ring Ouzel. It’s an exciting time of year in the garden as birds enjoy bountiful fruit from the site's Yew and Sorbus tree species.