My Tiny PlotIt’s ‘Apple’ Time of Year
Nothing says, ‘England’ to me like an early Apple harvest. The fresh taste of cold, sweet but a little tart, Apples is the taste of Autumn in our garden. My espalier Apple tree is now on its fourth tier and this year it has produced 33 good-sized eating Apples (last year we had 17).
It’s a Queen Cox, a self-fertile tree that does well in our damp climate. The taste is sweet, but not too sweet, with just the hint of a tang on the green side of the Apple. It’s perfect. If I had the room I would have a garden full of Apple trees, trained as espaliers, and cordons and over arches (because I like the challenge of training them). But sadly I don’t have the space.
One day (yes one day) I will have an orchard. And just like they do at Granchester I will sit on deck-chairs and have afternoon tea from delicate china. Until then I’m happy with my one Apple tree. But that doesn’t stop me wanting to go to the myriad of Apple Day’s coming up and tasting as many single different varieties as will fit in my mouth.
Here is a brilliant list of Apple Days in the UK
And there are quite a few popping up on the UK Veg Gardeners network too.
Once I’ve eaten all my own fruit I’m tempted to buy a selection box of heritage varieties, just so I can savour the different tastes.
Happy munching!
I’d love an orchard too, but have settled this year for 2 very small “trees”. Not yet into training but despite that have succeeded in 3 good sized fruits so I am not complaining. Any tips though on how and when to prune? One plant has suffered some leaf curl and has just one main branch.
Thanks for a great site.
gorgeous! Those look so tasty!!
How do you keep coddling moths and other critters out that love apples almost as much as we do? I have two baby trees I started from grafts this year (so no fruit yet) but I’m trying to learn strategies for keeping out the crawlies.
Nice tiny plot. The apples look great, just wondering, do you spray them? I have a peach tree, tried to stay away from pesticides. It was a disaster, the peaches all went bad.
Lovely pictures. We planted two part-trained espaliers last winter (each two tiers) and although we shouldn’t let them set fruit in the first year, when one tiny apple appeared on one of them in the spring we couldn’t bring ourselves to remove it (hooray they pollinated each other!). It is now a big red apple, and we’re looking forward to picking it next month!
We’ll try and cram as many other apple forms into our not very big garden too – the first espaliers form a “fence” around the raspberry patch; when we get around to sorting out the main garden I think we’ll try more against the side fence and maybe try and squeeze a small tree in the lawn… I lived about a mile away from Grantchester orchard a few years’ ago before I came to Wales – it’s a wonderful place to sit and drink tea under the apple trees in the summer!
We’re hoping to attend as many apple day events as we can find too – Stroud market was great last year for buying heritage varieties to taste, especially from the Day’s Orchard people…
They look delicious!
I’d love to grow a few espaliers but I’m not really confident with the pruning.
We planted a small orchard at Blackbirds 2 years ago and in the first year we had maybe 3 or 4 apples in total. This year we’ve had loads of apples and plums and even a few pears.
A gardener friend told me to keep it simple and prune 4″ off the end of each branch at the end of the growing season. Certainly worked for us but I suspect it also had something to do with the milder weather we had here in Hampshire when the blossom was on the fruit trees.
*Drool* They look scrumptious! I have three apple trees in my (sizeable) plot, but I’m not bragging. It’s going to be another good two years before mine even begin to fruit – so you enjoy those beautiful apples! I’ll watch the leaves fall off my trees lol!
No orchard here but have recently bought three trees on M27 rootstock which are destined for the lottie. In the meantime I am miffed because the fruits on them have totally vanished ~ wondering whether the squirrels have made off with them. Thanks for all the links – will explore them later.
They look great! and they are so many.
You can certainly tell autumn is comming because apples start apearing everywhere, but i think here in japan, it still be a bit more before apple season is at full.
It is one of my favourite times of the year too! Season of mist and mellow fruitfullness! I adore the taste of a freshly picked, ripe cox apple. Nothing like it in the world!
Those apples look delicious. Apple trees would just be one step too far for the windowsill unfortunately…
Very impressed with your espalier apples. They look delicious. Since moving to our new, temporary home we have not had the opportunity to grow apples, plums and pears which we had in our orchard previously. We will probably grow espalier apples in our community garden when we get access. It is a great way to grow apples in a small garden. I recently visited Barnsdale, the garden created by Geoff Hamilton. There were amazing examples of all the different approaches to growing apples there, including an amazing metal framed arch covered with many varieties of apples.
Great content. Will return
best wishes
Peter
I found the variety Ashmead Kernel very good flavour and have planted in an small orchard
I was at my friends at the weekend and as I was leaving she offered my a bag of apples from her tree. Then I remembered how easy and yummy it was to make apple crumble – delicious
squirrels steal all our apples! it is actually quite amusing watching a squirrel bounding along the fence, mouth bulging with a whole apple, but less amusing when there’s none left for us. Complex netting required…
Fab blog you have. I found you after reading about you in an article in this month’s Sainsbury’s magazine.
I attended an Apple Day on Sunday celebrating the fantastic English Apple.
They look great!
Ohhhh … afternoon tea from delicate china in an orchard sounds absolutely wonderful! Trouble is, whenever I take a cup of tea out into the garden I keep seeing things that need done. Like something needing weeded or whatever. Sadly I think I could only sit and drink tea in someone else’s garden. Or orchard!
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