2022 – A Bumper Apple Season

Who knows the saying ‘An apple a day, keeps the doctor away’? Probably just those of us of a certain age!

I think it was all about getting enough fibre in your diet and an apple’s as good as anything. As Britain has always been in the wonderful position of being a great apple growing nation. We’ve always had plentiful apples, including varieties that store all through the winter. So, a great source of fibre and vitamins all year long.

This year in particular has been great for apple growing, a proper bumper year, and we have been making the most of them!

So, carrying on with the apple theme from three weeks ago – when we were scrumping and baking Apple & Calvados cake with our neighbours delicious Bramley apples.

Our Apples

This week’s all about our apples, from our four cordon trees that grow against the Great Wall.

In planting order along the wall:

Apple ‘Sunset’
Apple ‘Winter Gem’
Apple ‘Christmas Pippin’
Two Pear trees
Apple ‘Discovery’

It really has been a bumper crop! Starting when we picked our first apples in August and we’re still picking now, at the end of November!

In order of ripening:

Discovery

This is one of the earliest varieties to ripen in Britain, (never mind our garden!), ripening in late summer. This year we harvested our first four on the thirteenth of August.

It is also very easy to grow and has gorgeous strawberry flavours. These three features, not surprisingly, make it the most common apple tree for home growers here in the U.K.

The only real downside is it doesn’t store well, but as it produces the first apples of the year, and they are so delicious this is not a problem!

I did though turn a few of them into a simple apple tart, their red skin making it look as good as it tasted.

It’s the only one of our four apple varieties that are not derived from the ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’.

This year with so much sunshine they turned redder than I’ve ever seen before. You could see them from right across the garden. It was almost a shame to pick them!

Sunset

‘Sunset’ is first in the planting line and second to harvest, in September.

Being derived from ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’ it has all the delicious cox flavour and that familiar colouring of green/yellow background with red mottling.

It’s a self-fertile tree which is unusual for an apple, so ideal if you only have room for one in your garden.

We had a fabulous crop from it in September. It starts with one or two, then suddenly they all come off in your hand as you gently lift the fruit.

As the raspberries were still in full production, we made quite a few apple and raspberry crumbles. Enjoyed for breakfast with yogurt.

Winter Gem

‘Winter Gem’ was introduced in the 90’s and is again a cox derivative. Its colouring is much more subtle, with the faint red blushed onto the green/yellow background. As with all of the apples its flavour is divine.

This year they grew bigger than previous years, two in particular were enormous. We were so paranoid that they would drop and be bruised that we kept checking them for weeks!

When we finally had the first one or two at the end of September, they were super sweet. This apple cordon had the least amount of fruit on, but as I said the biggest apples.

They always advise you to thin the fruits out when they are small to get bigger apples, but I find it very difficult to pull off perfectly good fruits. I take some off but probably not enough!

The main harvest came in October as usual, and we ate most of them without needing to bake with them. Mainly chopping them into our granola.

Christmas Pippin

Last but by no means least, ‘Christmas Pippin’. It is a relatively new apple only introduced in 2011. There’s no surprise that this ones another cox’s orange pippin derivative, the clues in the name!

It looks very similar to the other two cox derivatives, greeny yellow with a lot of red and it stores well, so a great addition.

Picking homegrown fruit off the tree in late November into December feels like a treat indeed. On a grey morning (like this morning), trotting off down the garden, to gently hold up an apple to see if it comes off into your hand is a special thing!

Especially when it’s as super juicy as these apples are. As you cut into them, the amount of juice that comes out feels more like a pear. They are sweet with so many flavours going on, I can taste strawberries and the gardening apprentice can taste melon. What’s not to like?

These were taken this morning, so a few more rewarding trips down the garden to come!

Apple Baking

As next doors Bramley Apple tree still has a large bounty, and on occasions we have more than we can eat, we are continuing to bake and freeze in a bid to preserve apples for the winter.

We still bake some cakes and if the gardening apprentice is handy to be on peeling duty, we make a few.

But as time always seems at a premium, apple crumble is the most common thing we make. It’s so quick and easy, I don’t even grease the dish, just chop the apples straight into the dish, pour the crumble on top and as Raymond would say, “Voilà, Bon appétit”!