The apple tree is literally dripping with apples. I'm not sure what type they are, they taste like a mix between cookers and eaters. Lovely Hubby delights in picking them off the tree and chomping away while he is about various chores on our patch. Me, I find the faces they make me pull only signifies they are a little to tart for my liking at the moment.
They will be brilliant in crumbles and pies and cooked down to make jars of apple sauce to go on LH's pork chops. I have lots of plans for appley delights, but there are other delights to come too and I will have to satisfy myself with the few I can grab and squirrel away before LH snaffles the lot.
He has plans afoot to make use of his birthday present from me (so it my own fault I am to be soon without apples), I bought him a fruit press and he has visions of gallons of cider brewing away nicely ready to strip paint be drunk at Christmas (if we can wait that long).
It's good this self sufficiency lark - you just have to be quick if you have different ideas for a specific crop!!
Another photo with the old apple tree in the background, this one is to show you my canny deer proof fences, erected around most of the raised beds. Made by simply reusing the netting that used to cover the raised beds at our last Farm and the electric fencing posts we used to have around the pigs there, they fit together perfectly. They have proved impenetrable up to now, fingers crossed we will soon be actually eating some of our courgettes instead of feeding the Berkshire wildlife.
I'm off to continue my sorting marathon in the spare room, I keep getting distracted, I think I need blinkers, or for the power to go off so I have no internet and no lovely Blogs to travel around reading while I drink my coffee.
Sue xx
No apples on our trees this year,but hopefully we'll have enough next year because Chris wants to make apple wine.
ReplyDeleteJane x
LH will need to leave the cider until at least March, or it will be not very nice. We leave ours until the apple blossom had finished next spring, as you get a secondary fermentation when the trees blossom again - strange, but true.
ReplyDeleteWe love our cider - we make about 80 L of cider and around 50 bottles of pasturised juice every year ( but not this year as the apple harvest is a bit poor!)
I am trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the pears from my tree. Do you prune that tree? I think maybe if you cut it shorter (so that you could reach to the top on a ladder, but no higher), you *might* end up with sweeter fruit. I'm no expert. This is my first year with a fruit tree. We were told that the sweetest fruit grows on the wood that is less than two years old.
ReplyDeleteno fruit on any of my trees this year,no i tell a lie 7 plums.Dont know what went wrong.
ReplyDeletex
The moment I saw the photo of your tree I thought cider! Apple crumbles don't sound too shabby either :)
ReplyDeleteYummy! I haven't eaten apple sauce for years - now I want some! :)
ReplyDelete