Apple Day Mansbridge Community Orchand

Apple Day 2014 at the Community Orchard in Mansbridge, was a fantastic success, everyone contributed and we all had lots of fun.

We had a big crowd of people from all walks of life and everybody chipped in to get things going, we even had a couple of ukulele players supplying musical accompaniment.

Southampton Woodcraft Folk, who are keen supporters of the orchard, pitched tents and organised pickers, tables and presses. I lugged the big press and fruitmill and more pickers (afforded through funding from the Southampton Airport Community Fund).

Once everything was set up and organised, people were dispatched into the trees, with pickers, to collect fruit. They duly returned with buckets and bags loaded with apples and even some pears.

The fruit was then chopped and milled into pulpy pommace and emptied into the presses.

The levers of the presses were turned by the hands of many enthusiastic and strong children and as the screws turned, the golden juice began to flow.

The process continued until it eventually began to rain but after a couple of hours of exertion, everyone was pretty exhausted anyway, so we packed up all the kit and took it home to be hosed down and washed. Well, I was pretty wet anyway.

I don’t know how much free nectar we squeezed out of those lovely apples but my bucket had about 3 gallons in it at one point. This was reduced to about 2 pints by the time we got home. So, I guess everyone went home happy.