Pressing Needs

Garden Grapes

When Autumn arrives we always get very busy. There's lots to harvest and lots of juice to press and process. First up this year was the grapes growing in our garden. I crushed them first, with a potato masher, then squeezed them, within an inch of there tiny lives, in our decade old apple press. Two Gallons are now bubbling away merrily in demi-jons. I was tempted to pasteurize the delicious juice but fermentation is a simple way to preserve fresh produce.

Grape Juice

Next up was the apples and we normally gather around two hundred Kilograms from parks, car parks and common ground around the city. However, this year the crop was massively depleted by relentles heat waves and consistent lack of rain. 

Apple Picking

Almost all the trees have been severely stressed and as a result the fruit yeild was way below par. Many of the trees had tiny apples and a lot of trees had no fruit at all.

Telescopic Game Changers

However, over time we have mapped out a vast amount of fruit trees, and this gives us many options. Even though the harvest was poor by comparison to any other year, and we've been doing this for fifteen years, we still managed to collect enough to make it worth our while.

Northam Apples

I didn't have time to weigh them but we definitely had over one hundred kilograms, and this was more than enough to cover our event at the British Science Festival. This event was attended by thirty plus people, and I led a short fruit and nut based walk over Southampton common, assisted by my family and the BSF volunteers. On our return, everyone mucked in with the chopping, milling, pressing and drinking of juice.

Apple Day in the Garden

Then a couple of days later, we did it all over again in the garden. We had our own harvest festival with friends, family and lots of fruit. Plenty of the juice got guzzled straight from the press, I pasteurised eight bottles as mitigation against the apocalypse, and two gallons were donated to a young cider maker who helped us with our picking endeavours.

The Juice is Loose
(British Science Festival)

September Remembers

 

I believe Autumn will arrive quickly this year. The trees are already stressed by the prolonged heat and drought the Summer brought, as a result, many have dropped their leaves early already. Fruit and Nut yields have been affected too. 

Early Leaf Fall Caused by Drought

Apples and Pears, normally abundant by this time, are often very small or even non existent this year. We have been out and about searching all our regular trees but the yield will be sparce this year for sure.

Tiny Apples

Hazelnuts, in the city and on the common, have been affected too, the nuts falling early and many with the shells empty, without kernels. Generally, when I collect these nuts, I do it gradually - I know a couple of trees on my route to work and fill my pockets on-route each day, they soon build up.

Hazelnuts

On the gardening and produce growing front, we have struggled to keep the vegetables watered sufficiently, lugging watering cans up and down the garden from our water butts. The Butts (We have 10 blue barrels) were already dry by June and we subsequently had no significant rainfall until September. It's been difficult to keep things alive and we will be reassessing our situation during the Winter, and increasing resilience for next year.

Gardening and Home Grown Produce

Elderberries are having a great year, seemingly unaffected by the weather. I will be topping up my port-wine supply to keep us going over the dark months. I recently harvested our grapes, which have thrived well on regular buckets of used washing up water. I made two gallons of delicious red juice, so it does show that you can find successful work arounds. More on this later...

Elderberries

The good, old fashioned Medlars that grow in the University grounds are looking nice and healthy and we will be looking at them briefly during my presentation for the British Science Festival (17th September).

Medlars

Next month I will be looking forward to Walnut gathering, Grape wine and Sloe Gin making and possibly even Chestnuts.