Reflections on the Fruity Constancy of Autumn

Normal is not a word that we will be using easily any time soon. The global pandemic has touched everyone probably, in numerous different ways. For me the biggest changes in the past two years have been, losing my elderly parents, and being made redundant after 15 years in one job. These two things were not directly linked to COVID-19, but they occurred during this period and added to my emotional stress levels. However, because of the pandemic, I did quickly find temporary employment, in a state of the art Coronavirus saliva testing laboratory, this was exciting, challenging, interesting and lasted for nearly a year. 

One aspect of my life that changed directly as a result of the virus was being unable to coach and train Wing Chun (Chinese kung fu), my hobby for over 30 years. I think the most significant thing that I missed was the social aspect of running a sports club. Being in frequent close proximity to people, who's company you enjoy and trust, while taking part in physical activity and learning, is tremendously beneficial to mental states and wellbeing. While we were unable to train together, I set up an online Qigong course to help people to reduce personal stress and control anxiety, while learning this solo art.

In many ways, being outside often, walking, observing nature and actively partaking in the seasonal changes, has been a consistent balm to my stress and anxiety levels during this difficult time and being aware of the ordinary changes, constantly reminds me that change is not only healthy but also is actually the only normal there can ever be.

Lots and Lots of Lovely Apples

Our children have now grown into teenagers, so their wants and needs are ever changing, but I'm pleased to say that they are still very happy to come apple picking with me in Autumn.

The Processing Begins with the Stainless Steel Spade

The kids and I along with my friend Andy picked about 300 Kgs of apples this Autumn, a really tasty haul. Lugging the heavy bags of colourful fruit up to the back of my garden, was quite enough exercise for one day.

The Delicious Juice begins to Pour

Then, one sunny weekend, Andy and I smashed, bashed, crushed and juiced the piles of apples and produced around 60 litres of delicious apple juice. It was a hard work,. but a nice (not to mention productive) way to spend the day. After our hard grafting we stored the juice in various buckets and jars in the garden shed, where it soon began to ferment into 60 litres of tasty cider. We aim to reduce this volume soon, it's taking up a lot of room in my shed!

Quite a Lot of Cider!

I also collected a good load of delicious yellow plums, which my daughter was more than happy to consume.

In November I started new employment, as a research technician at Southampton university. While wandering about during lunch hours, I kept an eye on the Medlar tree, situated near the Physics building, where I now work.

I have meddled with Medlars before, making wine and jelly but fancied something different this year. I gave a load to my friend Matt, who made nettle beer with me earlier in the year, and he produced a delightfully fruity Medlar Ale. I covered some Medlars with gin, in jars to supplement our Christmas Sloe Gin. We picked bags of Sloes during a much needed break on the Isle of Wight, and I can now testify that Medlar liquor is just as fruity as Sloe Gin, with a unique and distinctly different flavour and colour.

With my remaining Medlars, I produced Medlar fruit cheese or fruit leathers (as the recipe named them). Personally I don't think they bear any resemblance to cheese or leather, they are sweet, deliciously moist, very fruity, and they also keep remarkably well.

Apples, Pears, Grapes & Walnuts

It has been a very wet and very busy October. We have processed about 300kgs of apples. I needed a faster way to chop them on my own and a stainless steel Spear & Jackson did the job perfectly!

Gallons and gallons of delicious juice has been produced, some has been Pasteurised for later, some has been turning into cider and lots has been glugged back straight from the press by keen, thirsty workers.

Apple Day at Mansbridge Community Orchard was delayed by stormy weather but we delivered the following week and a gang of curious local kids and adults came out to help, which is what it is all about. We had wheelbarrows full of apples, boxes of pears and even had a bucket load of grapes to press.

The grapes produced a gallon of juice, which is now fermenting into red wine along with my cider and various other alchemical concoctions. We have also been collecting lots of Walnuts, to go with our Hazelnuts; there is a huge tree in Mansbridge, near the orchard. It has delivered a fantastic crop this year, most of which is lying on the green waiting to be gathered or gobbled by hungry squirrels.

My Apple Store is now completely filled to bursting and this should keep us in fruit through the winter, with a little luck. Unblemished Apples will keep for many months if stored in a cool dark place. They should not be left touching each other, so that if one goes bad, it will not affect the others and can be easily removed.

Apple Day at Mansbridge Community Orchard

The excitement is building, Apple Day is upon us once again!

Apple Pressing Day Sun 13th Oct 2019 2-4pm with Southampton Woodcraft Folk , Transition Southampton and Alan Gibson at Mansbridge Community Orchard (Southampton). 
All welcome, all ages! 
Bring a flask of tea, cake and refreshments.

Meet by the playground at the end of Octavia Road. 
If driving, park by the Swan Inn. 
Wear appropriate clothing for the weather, and for clambering about in woodland and/or operating apple presses or chopping apples. 
Bring a cup for sampling the deliciously fresh Apple Juice! 
Also you could bring any apples from home to add to the pressing.

Weather disclaimer - if it is really REALLY horrible, we'll put it off until the 20th - watch this space https://www.facebook.com/groups/180486315362683/

Meanwhile, my shed is filled with 115kgs of apples that we picked last weekend - the press is working overtime - 5 gallons of juice has already been processed and two gallons of cider is fermenting nicely!

Apples, Apples, Apples Apples, = Juice, Juice, Juice!

Apples, Apples, Apples, Apples, Juice, Juice, Juice!

It's finally that time of year again folks. 

We, well my son and I, have been collecting apples from all manner of trees for the last couple of weeks and building up a good stock for our family Apple day. Sometime, there are a few pears to chuck in, to add some extra sweetness to the mix. 

It's always difficult to say precisely when it will occur because the weather can be fickle. It tends to be an outdoor event, normally followed by a BBQ. Although we have done it under umbrellas, a borrowed gazebo and once even based in our shed.

As a result, invites inevitably go out at the last minute and many people will already have other things to do. However, I personally always enjoy not knowing who will turn up and when they might arrive. I simply get on with setting everything up, processing what we have and dealing with the vast amounts of delicious juice that we produce.

After our family Apple day, we have the Community Orchard Public Apple Day and then that is normally it for the year. Although, this year there may be some extra surprises. The press is thoroughly hosed down and stored until the next year; it is a beast of a thing and is constantly taking up space in my shed but it's well worth the inconvenience.

Summer Fades to Autumn

Blackberries are currently available all over the place and did yo know that the sweetest fruit will be found on the South side of the bushes, due to the direction of the sun (in the Northern hemisphere). So this means it is, in theory, possible to navigate by taste!

Mulberries are also ripening nicely too.

It looks like it will be a very good year for Apples and Pears and people tell me that they are falling early in their gardens. Personally I like to wait until late September / October because they always get fatter and sweeter as time goes by. Walnuts will be ready around the same time as the Apples and Pears. Plums, in many different colours, are still available now.

However, the end of the school holidays has always meant to me that Hazelnuts are ripe and falling. I have been gathering pockets full during my lunch hour and transporting them home in my sandwich box, to store in a wicker basket for later use. I keep some at work as a snack and smash them open with whatever I find to hand, when I desire a nibble.

Autumn Arrives

This year we have seen one of the longest and hottest Summers on record, but now, finally Autumn is upon us. We are having cooler mornings with dew on the grass, the wind is whipping up and the long awaited rain is arriving, cheering allotmenteers, gardeners and ducks alike.

We have been busy hunting down Hazlenuts, Apples and Pears, in all our familiar and favourite locations. 

It seems that all the lovely snow, bought to us here earlier this year via the Beast from the East, must have affected the pollinators and blossom of the trees because the fruit count is relatively low.

This massive and sustained Spring storm, followed by the long hot dry Summer may have caused the trees to change their normal patterns. Many trees also appear to have smaller than normal fruit that is ripening and dropping earlier than I would have expected.

I'm quite sure that there will be some trees that have managed to overcome the trials of the weather, but a cursory glance around our normal haunts shows a distinctly diminished harvest.

Having said this, we do know where a lot of trees are locally, over time we have located and monitored hundreds. As a result we are still managing to gather enough apples to store for the winter, press for juice and to create a good stock of cider.

The Many Apples of Mansbridge

As soon as October arrived, the temperature dropped. This is normal but this year it felt like someone had thrown a switch. However, when Apple Day @ Mansbridge Community Orchard came around, the sun was shining and the sky azure.

As soon as we had set up the equipment, the local children were asking what were we going to be doing. Once we had explained, they quickly recruited themselves into the communal effort.

The stages of this process are very simple...

1. Picking, grab the apples, fill the bags and return to base.
2. Slicing, chop the apples into segments and remove any really rotten parts.
3. Scratting, milling the apple slices into a finer pulp
4. Pressing, turning the screw on the cider press and watching the golden nectar flowing into the bucket.
5. Drinking, glugging down cups full of  gorgeous Apple juice & filling containers to take home.
   

I even found time to scurry off and harvest a huge bag of Pears. We will combine these with some of the Walnuts we have collected to make Pear & Walnut chutney - unless they get used up making Pear Chocolate Upside-down Cake!

We have been holding seasonal Apple based community events for five years now and every year we have more fun and involve more people. 

Our message is simple; the fruit is out there, you simply need to locate it, pick it and process it (or eat it straight off the trees). It is not difficult, it is fun and anyone can do it.

Family Eat Ancient Apples!

In our latest shocking news we have finally finished using the Apples that we picked last September! This nine month old fruit was turned into apple-sauce to accompany a splendid roast dinner.

This may come as a surprise to people who are used to buying apples with a sell-by date stamped on the cellophane wrappers, but some types of freshly picked Apples can keep for several months, given the right conditions.

We picked over 200 KGs last year, for free, from urban trees around our city and then stored them in our lovely old wooden apple-cupboard that lives in my garden shed.

The bucket-loads of apples that would not fit into the store were crushed, pressed and Pasteurised, turning them into into several gallons of delicious juice which, I'm pleased to report, we are still glugging down now and couple of gallons of golden cider, which have already been heartily consumed.

However, you do not need a lovely wooden apple cupboard to make apple keep for a long time. My mum still keeps hers in greengrocers boxes wrapped up in old newspaper and, to be honest, this method works just as well and actually makes it easier to remove any bad apples to the compost heap.

Choose the Best Jacket

Well the solar eclipse was a bit of a damp (cloudy) squib where we were, but never mind there's a lunar eclipse in September and another solar one coming to the UK in 84 years or so...

Meanwhile, something that requires more immediate attention is choosing your favourite book cover from the 3 images below. 
Please leave feedback and select your favourite, there will be a free signed book in the post for the most helpful comments, when they actually arrive.

Number One, Seasons

Number Two, Cherries

Number Three, Illustration

We hope you like the look of these book jackets. 
Please do leave comments, it really helps. 
I think it is a difficult choice, but that is a good thing.

Summer Summary

Hazelnuts are now starting to fall, so make like squirrels and get collecting. They come in many different shapes and sizes and only trial will tell which nuts hold the biggest kernels. I have my favourite trees but these nutritious little beauties are very common in hedges and woodland all over the UK.

Hazelnuts will keep very well in a dry place. So, if you don’t cook or eat all of them straight away, you can save some until Christmas. They will keep a lot longer than that too; I recently finished cracking my supply from last year, to make space for this year’s crop!

Apples and Pears are still ripening on the trees and they will soon be ready to pick. I have been scoping out my favourite local trees to see how well they are doing. When fruit trees supply a heavy crop one year, they tend to have a bit of a rest the following year, so it’s well worth checking before you make any plans.

In due course, we will be organising an Apple Day at Mansbridge Community Orchard. This fun annual event is likely to be held in early October.

Other things to be thinking about at this time of year include Elderberries, Sloes and Medlars, all of which are plentiful and can be converted in to an array of delightful and delicious hedgerow treats.

Blackberries and Mulberries are still very abundant at the moment and you can always freeze any that you or your children do not greedily gobble up.

Crab Apples can be processed into a great many different preserves and drinks and there are loads available for free at the moment.

As Autumn begins, It’s always worth keeping an eye on the Sweet Chestnuts. It’s far too early to collect them yet, but it’s always good to bear these magnificent trees in mind.

Frosty days might seem a long way off at the moment, but the seasons still turn and keen observation of change is a key weapon in the forager's arsenal.

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