Frost damage.

A harsh unexpected frost a few weeks ago has wiped out the fruiting plants on the plot. Tiny blackened plums, wizened burnt-orange gooseberries and shrivelled currants litter the ground. Skeletal clusters of grapes, blackened on the vine, are like charcoal scrawls against the pale sky, dead sweet peas rattle in the breeze, bleached white as beach flotsam.

It's what happens.

My friend Mohammad raises his eyes to the heavens and says, "This is the way - it's nature." He takes me on a little tour of his plot to show me the damage to his trees. "The apple's OK, the plum maybe not so. Just a few, look here," he points, "to the top" where I can see a branch with a few good sized fruits forming. We weave through the vegetable beds, stepping around cabbages and over seedlings until we reach his cherry tree. He smiles and presents it with a small theatrical flourish. It has a simple, heavy black steel frame erected around it which is shaped like a giant staple and draped from the top bar is a builders green mesh sheet. This swaddles the tree and is tied around the trunk, nipped in like a dress at the waist. Through the open weave of the fabric I can see the tree inside is covered in fruit. Every branch. He gives me a serious look and nods, "The birds, we'll beat them this year, no?"