Swimming with Apples

We paid a visit to Flemming Park for a swimming trip with the children. While we were there we checked out the Apple trees that grow in the leisure centre car park and were pleased to see that they were positively swamped with sweet red fruit...

Fortunately we had some buckets and fruit pickers in the car, not that we really needed them, I picked a lot just by reaching up with my hands. The children are accustomed to the fact that we are always busy harvesting Apples during September and they were out of the car in a flash. When they were young we allowed them to stand on the car roof to pick - they are too heavy for this now.

It's almost hard to know where to start when faced with this many Apples but my son, who loves climbing, was soon scrambling up among the branches. He started lobbing fruit down to my daughter who quickly set about honing her catching skills. Meanwhile, I used the picker to access the higher fruit and it did not take us long to fill our boot with a healthy 40kgs. 

These soft Summer Apples have a pinkish flesh and are quite sweet but do not keep well, so we will use our load for juicing. They should balance the large amount of cookers that we picked off a friend's garden based tree. There are plenty more Apples left on these trees, so get down there with some bags and boxes soon. If you do not have a picker or climber you can get people to hold out a blanket and then shake the branches but watch out for cars.

Also, please take a few minutes to nominate me for #GetOutside champion email getoutside@os.uk with a few words explaining why Alan Gibson (aka the Urbane Forager) would be a great ambassador. Include links to this blog and your favourite pictures from here too.