Everything's Gone Green

Garden Grown Grapes

The Urbane Forager Project encourages active travel, reduces reliance on commercially transported food, and strengthens environmental stewardship (Mansbridge Community Orchard). It also supports public health: spending time outdoors, connecting with nature, cycling or walking between sites, and engaging with local green spaces all contribute to better mental and physical wellbeing.

Spring Moss, For Fun - Not Eating

By teaching others to identify, harvest, and use urban fruit, the project highlights important scientific concepts including seasonality, biodiversity, ecological cycles, and the environmental impacts of food production and transport.

Wild Garlic

To help people with early tree identification and mapping, I created the free seasonal id cheat sheets, which can be downloaded as pdfs or printed off. The Urbane Forager: Free Seasonal Tree id Sheets.

Seasonal Garden Broccoli and Cavallo Nero

Blossom spotting is one of my favourite ways of locating future fruit; I like it partly because of the joy it brings after the bleak days of Winter, but you need to be quick off the mark. The flowers often do not last long and are soon replaced by the bright green of new foliage. The Plum bloom has already faded and next on the menu will be Apple, Pear and Cherry blossom.

We Pick Hundreds of kgs of Free Apples

Needless to say, other options are available, and yes, there is indeed an app for that. Falling Fruit draws on cutting-edge citizen science collaboration. I contributed early mapping data to FallingFruit.org, a global, crowd-sourced fruit map built by an international team of scientists and developers. This open-access platform now allows anyone to find and contribute geospatial data via smartphone, expanding public engagement with ecological information. The Falling Fruit map/app is currently being re-developed and updated, so we should see some improvements soon.

The Falling Fruit Map/App

In slightly less technical language, you can click a button and locate fruit and nut trees, as well as other edibles, close to your location. You can also discover the condition, abundance and seasonality of the nutritious food sources. The app also makes it simple to photograph, locate and  contribute your own discoveries, for others to find.

Rhubarb

Tangentially, Rhubarb crumble is another of my seasonal favourites, it has been growing strongly in our garden and I've already made (and eaten) two tart and tasty treats. I like to add a small amount of ginger to make it perkier still (as recommended by Delia Smith).

Another Crumble

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!

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!

Blackberry & Apple Crumble Season

Autumn seems to have arrived and with it (in our household) the traditional rush to harvest a good crop of local apples to be put to various good uses throughout the forthcoming year.

Some apples seemed to ripening early this season but others seemed to be quite small for the time of year. Our policy has been to pick the biggest ones and leave any runty remainders, to see whether they fatten up at all after the September rain.

My initial priority is always to fill the apple store in my shed with my favourites, beautiful unblemished fruit that will keep us in apples until march next year.

Of course, we always look forward to a regular sequence of, delicious Blackberry and Apple crumbles too.

After the shed store is filled, it comes down to - more a matter of quantity than quality. We are looking for a good weight of various types of apples to smash and crush down into about 50 litres of the tastiest juice and scrumptious cider.

In our first week this September, we collected well over 150 Kgs of fresh free fruit. By the time you read this, it will be around 200 Kgs.

People who see me as some kind of an expert in the field, frequently ask me if I am able to identify all the different types of apples. Well, the truth in my eyes is that that this process is more easily accomplished than they seem to think. 

My daughter is the official Apple Tester. She takes a bite - if her face lights up with a smile, it is an delicious eater - if she pulls a sour face, it is for cooking... Simple!

Important Diary Dates

• I will be giving a talk to Highfield Women's Institute, about the Urbane Forager project on Monday September 25th.
• 2017 Apple Day at Mansbridge Community Orchard is initially programmed for Sunday 1st October. Keep an eye on this blog or on our social media for updates/changes. Dates can be subject to change at short notice, according to local weather conditions.
  

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

Immature Fruit, Blossom and Wild Garlic

Bluebells and Wild Garlic are flooding the woodland borders with colour and pungent aromas, Apple and Pear blossom is filling the trees. If you pop down to the Mansbridge Community Orchard, you will be able to see where all the trees are located.

The weather has changed here; we have even had flurries of snow and nights of frost, which has been a shock because of the unseasonably warm March that this year brought us.

Regardless of the chill that has been in the air, the early blossom is now developing into immature fruit. However, you will will be unlikely to notice this ripening bounty unless you are actively looking for it.

Even though the Plum flowers first, the Cherries will win the race to maturity and they will normally be the first fresh fruit that we pick in June, followed by the Plums in July. Needless to say, we will be keeping an eye on the progress of our favourite trees.

This weekend we will visit Butser Ancient Farm to enjoy a Beltain celebration and help burn a gigantic wicker man. I cannot think of a better way to welcome in May. Soon we will be spotting Elderflower and the sun will be warming our faces.

In the meantime, we have been reminding ourselves of last year's glorious Summer sunshine by making hot Mulberry compote, using our frozen stash, and drizzling it over ice cream!

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.

Community Apple Day

Apple juice, straight from the press, is the best tasting treat of the Autumn (followed closely by Blackberry & Apple crumble). 
If you want to experience this wonder, get yourselves down to the Mansbridge Community Orchard Apple Day. 

This event will take place on the afternoon of 9th October 2016 from about 2:00 pm.  Bring some stout bags or buckets to collect fruit, and join in with the family-based fun, on Octavia Rd Open Space.

If you have any spare fruit from your garden bring it along and we will turn it into delicious juice. The Apple Day is an open air event, do wear robust clothing and footwear (wellies/hiking boots are de-rigeur).

N.B.This is an amateur/volunteer/community based event – as such everyone is responsible for their own health and safety and parents/guardians are accountable for their children.
Remember to order a copy of the Urbane Forager book (now also available for Kindle) as a Christmas gift for your friends and family.