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!

Mansbridge Apple Day 2017 Community Orchard

As we waited patiently to see what the weather would do, on our Apple Day at Mansbridge Community Orchard, my daughter and I baked a scrumptious seasonal Apple Cake to take along. 

We did eventually set the start time back a couple of hours, to dodge the rain and this did catch a couple of people out but fortunately, they all came back later and stayed on until the end of the day. 

Despite the grey skies, damp ground and dripping trees, we had a good turn out, with lots of new, local children joining in. The trees were filled with fruit, as they always are and teams of pickers were shuttling back and forth between the trees and the tables.

At the Southampton Woodcraft Folk base camp, apples were being enthusiastically sliced, diced and chopped up into smaller segments, which were then tipped into the scratting mills, pulped down and tipped into the various cider press baskets.

Then the press screws were turned down and the tastiest golden nectar began to flow by the gallon. People were dodging between the presses filling bottles, various containers or cups and glugging back the delicious apple juice. 

Altogether it was a very successful and fun day for everyone concerned; some people even found time to gather some walnuts from the massive tree nearby (I collected five kilos, in twenty minutes, the day before). 

According to some sources, it was said that in the 'golden age,' when men lived upon acorns the gods lived upon Walnuts, hence the name of Juglans, or Jupiter's nuts.

Don't forget to put the Urbane Forager book on your Xmas present lists!

Organic Fruit & Nuts For Free

Regular readers of this blog will know by now that we pick a colossal amount of Apples (as well as other fruit and nuts) from public ground around the city and all of it is available for free, but only for those willing to seek it out and collect it.

You might be tempted to think that because we harvest so much, there will be none left for everyone else who is interested, but nothing could be further from the truth. There is still a great quantity of fruit out there, waiting to be picked.

With this in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to show just some of the trees that we have not picked any fruit from. They are ripe and waiting to be harvested, or ready to drop on the ground and be heartily consumed by Mother Nature (which is also good). In these times of enforced austerity, where we are constantly bombarded with news of food poverty and food banks, I have been known to make bold proclamations about the democratisation of food.

Mostly what we do is explore our environment and then pick free fresh fruit and nuts because they are available and to prevent it being wasted. It is nice to be outdoors and we do have a great deal of free fun. However, despite the huge amounts that we pick, there is still far, far too much for us. This is why we want to engage and inspire other people, to do similar things. WE aim to enable anyone else to do the same for themselves; hence the open access global fruit map and free Seasonal id Sheets.

We are fortunate to have steady employment and often buy food in the shops, like everyone else but we will not be buying Apples, Pears, Blackberries, Hazelnuts, Walnuts, Apple Juice etc. this Winter, because we have stacks stored away. It does surprise me when I see people crushing fresh fruit under the wheels of there large vehicles, as they queue in dense polluting traffic in order to get to the overcrowded, overpriced sterile environment of the supermarkets.

These people could be out in a field, enjoying the open air and gathering organic Fruit and Nuts for Free, but the fact that they are not, means that there is always plenty left for those who are making the effort to forage.

Don't forget to put, the Urbane Forager book on your Christmas present list. 

Order your copy now!

You can buy this lovely book for your friends and family from all good book-stores or Amazon.

the Urbane Forager: Fruit and Nuts for Free

Author: Alan Gibson

ISBN: 978-1-78507-300-7

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Apple Day @ the Orchard

Cider Press in the Foreground - Conker Contest in the Background

We are delighted to report that Apple Day at the Mansbridge Community Orchard was a massive success. Thanks to everyone who turned up, joined in and helped make it a truly fantastic day.

Slicing & Dicing

The sun was shining, the trees were loaded with apples, lots of new people (57!) of all ages turned up and joined in. Everyone had heaps of fun and drank/left with gallons of scrumptious Apple juice.

the Apple Conveyor Belt

The basic process goes like this...

Another Load Arrives

Volunteers pick apples and bring them back to the base, then other volunteers cut and mince the apples, using the "scratters" (fruit mills). The pommace (crushed fruit) is then poured into the presses and squeezed, squashed, crushed and compressed until the delicious juice pours out into buckets. This juice is then fed back to the volunteers to keep their energy up and the surplus stashed in various bottles, and containers to take home.

Good Work Girls

This is not going to be a long wordy post, there is no need, I will let the images and films do the talking.

Juiced Rewards

Operating the Big Press

Returning with Another Healthy Hoard

the Evil Quince Pimp Wuhahaha!

Marching Back from the Trees

Team Work

Fun For the Young Too

Sensible Transportation

This Young Man Likes Apples!

Not Pyramids, Sunset Over Southampton Roofs as I Washed the Kit

Now, it must surely be nearly time for Sweet Chestnuts...

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. 

Autumn Approaches

As September sneaks in under the radar, the evenings are getting cooler, the morning dew is getting heavier. We have been hunting for Hazelnuts and all the signs indicate that their will be plenty of them ripening imminently. The bright orange berries in the top picture are Rowan (Mountain Ash). They can be used to make a tasty seasonal jelly but obviously you should only pick them off a tree that you have clearly identified first.

Elderberries are already ripe and ready for gathering, I normally make a deep red, flavoursome wine out of our Elderberries but you can also make other products, such as syrup, cordial or jelly, which is said to stave off colds and illness as the nights draw in.

Crab-Apples are the only truly native Apples to be found in the UK, they are often found planted in grass verges in the city but can also be found in hedgerows. They are mostly ripe now and there is a whole host of things that can be done with these undervalued little beauties.  

We have also been checking out the larger Apples as they begin to ripen. Many of the trees we have investigated are over burdened with immature fruit. They will be ready for picking in late September or October but some early Summer Apples are ready to gather sooner.

Some people ask us to help harvest excess Apples from their gardens, we picked about 50 Kgs from one tree and these will either be added into our Winter storage or contribute to our juicing efforts. It will soon be time to dust off the trusty old Cider Press!

Diary Date: 
Sunday 13th September at 3:00pm

My friend Clare Diaper & I will be leading a free walk from Woolston Railway Station on Sunday 13th September 3:00pm.

Clare has written a delightful book on local walks from railway stations and we will be following one of her routes. The circular walk will take about 1.5 hours. En-route we will be pointing out and identifying many fruit and nut trees. 

Everyone is welcome and the walk will take us up through Peartree Green, essentially a steep hilly field, so wear appropriate clothing and footwear. Bring bags if you want to lug some of the oodles of apples available home with you, or you could just grab a couple as fuel, to sustain you until tea time. 

If you are coming on the walk and want a copy of the Urbane Forager book - please let me know in advance and I will bring copies with me.

Also, please take a few minutes to nominate me as a #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. 

Young Fruit and Elderflower

Cherries

I have been very busy during my lunch hour trips around Segensworth, and fortunately the weather has been welcoming. I have been keeping tabs on where the various fruit trees are located, tagging them as they blossomed on the Falling Fruit map. Here, you can see that I have surrounded the grim grey industrial estate with an abundance of fabulous fruit trees.

Plums

When you use this method during the Spring, you always need to revisit the sites to be sure that young fruits are following the flowers. It can be difficult to spot immature fruit initially, because it is camouflaged very effectively by the green leaves.

Apple Blossom

It's a little early yet to tell whether the army of Apple trees that I have spotted will eventually produce good fruit. many of them may turn out to be Crab Apples, which can also be used in many interesting ways.

Elder Flower

At the Urbane Forager, the first things we pick each year are Elder-flowers. We make cool Cordial and chaotic Champagne from these delicately scented ivory blooms.

Cherries

Elderflower drinks are soon followed by waves of sweet, dark Cherries, and then bucket loads of multi-coloured wild plums. Hopefully, Summer will be in full swing by this time. 

Plums

It always pays to be as well prepared and you can do this too by utilising our free Seasonal id Cheat Sheets. These handy aids have also been redesigned and included in the forthcoming Urbane Forager book.