Orchard Progress

This week I've managed to get 17 trees into the ground. Some planted at night with torch (the neighbours must have thought I was burying bodies!) and quite a few planted today in the rain. I've put in common varieties like Cox and Braeburn but also interesting varieties such as Brownlees Russet and Medlar, so there should be a good mix.

I've still got to transplant a few trees from the allotment (two plums and a nectarine) and a pear from our old garden and then that will be enough in for this year. (I've still got loads of soft fruit to move and plant)

Next year I plan to plant a lot more plums, some more cooking apples and damsons as well as any others that take my fancy or are highly recommended! It's a small area of our smallholding but I plan for it to be a very productive one.

Allotment Orchard

This weekend Ive expanded my fruit garden down at the allotment. A nectarine, plum, braeburn apple, cox apple, redcurrant and a gooseberry bush have all gone in. I planted the nectarine on the south side of the shed to give it added protection, so I will hopefully get a few fruits from it. The apples and plum were planted on the furthest south fence so they don't shade any of my plot. I also dug in some Jerusalem artichokes in my new perennial area so that should keep us farting next winter (mind you I've never tried them so I might not like them!).

Apples!

I love apples, I eat two everyday of my life.
I know this goes against my seasonal eating but I have a packed lunch and I need my fruit. I eat English apples for as long as possible and then grudgingly make the switch. But I love this time as year as I get the crisp lovely apples for free, just a few hours spent picking them, which is a treat in itself!
My parents farm isn't great for eating apples, although I have planted many different trees over the last 5 or 6 years they are only just becoming useful, so our store mainly contains cooking apples.
The three on the picture above are my three favourites, Warner King, Scot Bridget and the good old Bramleys Seedling.
The Warner King doesn't keep over a month but is very early to be ready and I think tastes better cooked than any other apple.
The Scot Bridget is duel purpose (although its skin is quite tough), we've managed to keep them till May and it always has a huge crop no matter on the year.
The Bramleys Seedling comes from three trees down the bottom of the old orchard we've got loads of them and they store quite well, also good for a baked apple.

My mother and I have both wrapped up our apples in their paper jackets for storage, so now its just a case of thinking of enough recipes to cook them in.

A Busy Autumn Weekend

Apple picking again! This time I’m picking for storage.
The Norfolk Royal is absolutely laden with apples this year, but to pick some more I’ll need to use the tractor and loader, so maybe next weekend (i've already been told off for standing on the shed roof!). The Norfolk Royals' waxy skin helps it keep well into winter with the correct storage, but I’ve only got baskets to store them in – when I’ve built my new shed I will create a proper apple storage area so they’ll keep longer. I also managed to pick Bramley apples as well as all the pears that are left on the young trees.
As well as this I’ve decided to pick all my tomatoes, red and green, for soup and chutney. I’m making the chutney today so might post it later on. All my chilli peppers were also picked yesterday and put straight into the food dryer.
Like a fool I tried one of the dried fruits this morning and then spent hours with my tongue under the tap! I made them into flakes but placing the fruits in a freezer bag and lightly hitting them with a hammer, this should make them easier to add to stews and things. They should keep a long time sealed in a jar and they'll be good for warming us up on cold winter nights!

Fruit drying

Some of the early eating apples we got from my mum and dad’s don’t keep very long, so before they go rotten its time to get the fruit dryer out from the cupboard.

We brought this fruit dryer from Poland when we went on holiday there last year as it was only £30 compared to nearly £100 in this country.



To dry the apples I peal and core them before cutting them into slices and lying on the drying trays.




Then with the food dryer on I leave them for 24 hours until they’re crisp and seal them in kilner jars.




Kept in a cool dark place I’ve kept apples like this for a year and they’re great for snacking on.


As you can see in the pictures I also dried raspberries and blackberries. The raspberries are lovely and nice on cereal with milk but the blackberries went like burn currants and I wouldn’t recommend them (make sure they dont go in the compost either or you might as well plant brambles!).

My chilli peppers will be then next thing to have the drying treatment to make my own chilli flakes.

Crab Apple Jelly

Being back on Mum and Dad's farm the other day we decided to pick some crab apples from the small damson orchard, along with some other fruit.
The idea was to make loads of crab apple jelly when we got back home. I’ve made jam in the past but I’ve never made a jelly and thought it would be interesting to try.
After looking through what seemed like hundreds of cooking books we decided that it was best to adapt a recipe to what we had at hand.

Making the jelly
We first chopped the apples into quarters and chucked them into the largest saucepan we own (it only held three quarters of carrier bag full and even then it boiled over!). We added enough water to cover the fruit and then boiled it for an hour.

We then mashed the fruit up and put it into a jelly bag suspended over a pot.
We left this bag to drain through for 24 hours (we had to go to work!). We didn’t squeeze the bag as we’d read you get more jelly but its cloudy and wanted ours to be clear.

In the end we had about a pint of juice, this we put in a sauceepan and started to simmer. We then put the same amount of sugar into a bowl and warmed it in the oven before adding it slowly to the juice.
Once the sugar was dissolved we brought it to a rapid boil until it reached setting point (this didn’t take long), and we poured it into freshly sterilised jam jars out of the oven.
Then we put wax discs on top and plastic lids before licking the saucepan clean.
The jelly set rock solid, had a really nice apple taste to it and was very clear. It only made three small jars though!

What else can I do with crab apples?

I have planted some crab apple seeds to make my own root stocks to graft some dessert apple branches on but I’m still not sure how to do it.