Big crop, broken branches

Cider variety Somerset Redstreak, upright branches and a heavy crop lead to a big break.

Dear all.

It's been a long time! Sorry if I have failed to answer any questions, I haven't been coming here and don't get an email feed from this blog.No offence intended, none taken I hope, but Julia and I have just had so much to do I have let this blog fall totally into neglect. The web site has dropped off, I only realised recently it is no longer searchable, it seems like Yahoo have arbitrarily pulled the plug and I didn't even notice. Ah well, it wasn't that great and YouTube tells a better story for less effort, so let it be.

Life has been complicated. In brief:

Our average age is now over 60. In July 2015 I had a very bad fall which left me with limited mobility. We have pulled out of all marketing of fruit. Any apples we don't use go for cider to our friend Mr Jez Howitt. I regularly send out scion wood in early spring (more on this later). My medical and education work has grown, leaving me less time for the orchard and blogging. The YouTube channel remains my main outlet for information. And...blah blah.

We aim to keep up the orchard but more as a place of rest and recreation and an apple sanctuary.

Currently doing some life laundry and having to decide which activities to stop, which to continue and at what level.

I may keep this blog going, depending on level of interest. See you.

Late autumn, early winter...

First week of December. It has been mild so far, just a couple of light frosts. This picture shows one of the last cider apples, a Le Bret, hanging on.

Le Bret is a funny apple. We did not plant it on purpose, it was mispropagated as Sweet Alford in a West Country nursery some time ago (according to Liz Copas) and as the 2 fruits are quite similar in appearance and quality, by the time the error was noticed it had been widely planted. In fact, the 8 we have in our orchard were propagated from one we bought from Scott's nurseries of Merriot (now so sadly gone), which we no longer have.

Its a sweet apple, very annual and usually heavy cropper, forming great ropes of fruit. Insipid to bite into, making a nondescript although palatable single variety cider. It was a large component of perhaps the nicest cider I ever made about 10 years ago. I have made 10 gallons with about 40% Le Bret and wild yeast, will see how this does.

We are doing 2 Farmers Markets this weekend, Fareham and Winchester. This will be our last Winchester, we are pulling out of this market for 2014 although will go to the Cathedral markets. More on this later, mainly due to too much to do and wanting to have our Sundays back.

picking the Sturmer Pippin apples

Picked a quarter ton of ripe Sturmer Pippins today, 24th October. It might have been OK to leave them on another week, they are about the last apple we pick, but they were parting from the tree with little difficulty and as this is the last opportunity I have to pick for 5 days and strong winds are forecast, I got on with it.

They have coloured up very well this year and there is very little fungal disease, doubtless due to the exceptionally warm dry summer.

They are a very sharp, firm variety and are at their best from December to February, possibly lasting as long as May in ideal conditions. Store apples cool and well aerated but not too dry, and check them weekly for rots. The variety originated in the village of Sturmer in Suffolk and was first noted in 1827. According to Rosie Sanders 'The Apple Book ' (highly recommended) the parents are believed to be Ribston Pippin and Nonpareil. I am prepared to believe this as the fruit has several similarities to Ribston Pippin which we also grow. I remember seeing Tasmanian grown Sturmers in the shops in May-it is a durable apple.

This heritage apple is a strong recommend as a late keeper, especially in areas of lower rainfall. It does not ripen as well as this every year. It also has a tendency to scab and often requires fruit thinning in early summer to avoid excessive numbers of small fruits. There are better looking and better flavoured apples, but few that store as well through the winter.

Pressing the 2013 cider

I will try to update this blog more often in the future, although my main activity relating to the orchard will continue to be YouTube.

Yesterday, 19th October, I pressed 13 gallons of juice for a friend who usually has some, although I couldn't supply any last year due to the appalling harvest and my leg injury. Thankfully I am pretty nearly fully recovered from that.

Everyone keeps saying 'Its a bumper year for apples'. I'm not so sure, but it is certainly much better than last year, which I refer to as 'The long winter of 2011-2013'. The cider I made last year was disappointing but I had some yesterday and it seems to have matured to something quite nice in the 1 litre glass bottles with half a teaspoon of white sugar added to give some secondary fermentation. A bit of fizz definitely helps with dull cider. Last year's fruit just did not receive enough sunshine to achieve really good flavours or sugar levels.

This year I have been expecting some real vintage cider due to the summer sun. I pressed 25 gallons 2 weeks ago, adding just under 1 Campden tablet per gallon and some wine yeast. I know this is not completely authentic but I have lost more than one batch of cider to spoilage organisms before now and I don't want that to ever happen again. It was a mix of about 40% cider apples, largely Tremlett's Bitter, and apples like Sunset and Lord Lambourne which had gone very slightly soft. More on my bugbear issue of 'crunchy' apples later. A gravity of about 1059 was achieved and fermentation is ongoing.

Yesterday after pressing the client's order I pressed a box each of Kingston Black (about 16 kg, the whole crop from 15 trees. KB is a great fruit but a pathetic cropper) and Yarlington Mill. My friend Mike Gurman (check out his Atomic Shrimp videos) helped me and noticed how hard it was to mill these apples as they make such a stiff paste. The Kidd's Orange Reds we pressed earlier went through about 4 times as fast. The 4 gallons of juice came in at 1072, a very high gravity indeed.

I added some fizzing cider from the earlier batch but no sulphite as hoping for a very quick fermentation. The sulphite kills bacteria that can spoil the cider, very necessary if you are using fruit that has been lying on the orchard floor for a week or so but all the fruit we pressed was hand picked. Clean fruit and a rapid start to fermentation should obviate the need for sulphite.

Our next Farmer's Market is next Sunday at Winchester. We will have Orleans Reinette, Spartan, red Pippin, Egremont Russet, Suntan and maybe one or 2 odds and ends. We used to take unpasteurised apple juice to these markets but someone complained they had a loose bowel action 'gave me the shits' as she delicately put it) after drinking our juice. Also a Food Hygiene Police busybody presented us with a huge wad of requirements so we stopped it. Too bad for the many people who liked our '100% flavour in' fresh pressed raw juice, but there you go. I can't spend £10,000 complying with food hygiene regulations to sell £300 or £400 worth of fresh juice per annum.

Hill Farm Orchards make a perfectly acceptable range of pasteurised bottled apple juice which I recommend. I have pasteurised apple juice before now, I may do again this autumn and it can be a good product, but to me always tastes of stewed apple rather than fresh pressed juice.

Enjoy the autumn.

Late summer 2013 update

Hi everyone. As you may have noticed, I've not been around here much. Those of you who watch my YouTube channel will know I had a bad leg injury last year which led to our cancelling the Apple Day. I was a lot more mobile by Christmas but we had to cancel the Wassail due to the rain. This year I have been very busy teaching dermatology, my main professional occupation, and we never organised an Apple Day event.

Been a funny year, again. The late cold spring means plums and pears lost out again, we will have a few, and the apples are all about 3 weeks late and small due to the severe drought in July. Our light sandy soil does not retain moisture well and we cannot afford to irrigate.

I have just updated the list of our sales for this year at www.fruitwise.net, mainly its Fareham and Winchester Farmer's Markets and the Winchester Cathedral harvest event on the weekend of 5/6 October. Oh and the Netley autumn festival on Saturday 12th October. That's it.

Hope to see some of you there.

Remaining 2012 markets

 

Belated details of our remaining markets for 2012 are as follows. These are all Winchester and Fareham Farmer's Markets, details can be Googled if you aren't sure.

Winchester Farmers Market Sunday 14th October 9-2. We will have Orleans Reinette, Kidd's Orange Red, Sunset, Egremont Russet, maybe a few others. We also have some nice Fruitwise Heritage Apples canvas bags which we are selling at £1 each, well below cost as we have a load left. Buy 3kg of apples and we'll give you one free.

Saturday 20th October Winchester Cathedral market 9-3

Sunday 28th October Winchester

Saturday 2nd November Fareham Farmer's Market 9-2

Subnday 11th November Winchester. We should have Sturmer Pippin and Winter King by then. As I wrote (8th October) they are still hanging on the trees.

Sunday 25th Winchester

Saturday 1st December Fareham

Sunday 9th December Winchester

Saturday 22nd December Fareham

Sorry we can't do any juice or cider apples this year. 2012 has been a very difficult year for us with my serious leg injury in June from which I am not quite recovered and with weather so appalling that its effect on agriculture of all kinds from honey to cereal has become a  major news story. We had no plums, no pears, drastically reduced crops of many apples.

We hope for better things and a much better information flow in 2013.

Sad news, no Apple Day event this year

Bumzer! My right leg is in a cast following an Achilles tendon rupture 3 weeks ago. Tripped on a hotel staircase. Regrettably, I will be unable to walk without crutches and very great difficulty until at least October and by then will probably have lost so much calf muscle bulk I'll need another three months physio. So that's me out of action for the rest of this year.

Sorry, we have no option but to cancel the 2012 Apple Day exhibition and sale we usually hold in October at Durley Memorial Hall.

Also, there are no plums or pears this year due to sustained heavy rain on the blossom. In a normal year we'd be preparing for our first markets now, as it is we're debating cancelling our 'summer' holiday due to the prolonged filthy cold windy weather. It was going to be a walking and fishing break, now I can't do either. If we're going to stop indoors looking out the window at the rain, painting and reading, we might as well do it at home and save the drive to Cornwall and back.

When I know what markets we will have any apples for, I'll post a list here. Sorry.

I'm blogging about my injury and recovery on the YouTube channel, I hope to do a charity fundraiser for a third world orthopaedic and trauma charity, the British Palawan Trust to perhaps bring some good out of this.

Orchard update 5th June

We took some time out from the long Jubilee weekend Monday and Tuesday mornings to spray glyphosate (a non toxic, non persistent systemic weedkiller which I call vitamin G) around the bases of the apple trees where the grasses and weeds were knee high. We had mown the grass the last time we were free and the weather was sunny, but no mower gets right to the trunk and this needs to be clear of weeds. Weeds and grass right up to the trunk not only competes with the tree for soil moisture (still scarce despite rain)  and shelters bark nibbling voles but also stops the bark drying out so promotes fungal disease.

While working my way round the orchard with the 15 litre knapsack sprayer I had the chance to get a good look at the fruit set. Too early to tell for some later blooming varieties such as cider variety Dabinett (which is still partly in blossom) but the fruit set seems better than I had feared. The plums are very poor and the pears disastrous, I already knew that (cold wet weather on the blossom, which comes earlier than apples) but most of the apples are set from moderate to superabundant. The Russets have a very light crop and the Ribston Pippin almost non existent, we will just have enough for our exhibition, but the Sunset, Lord Lambourne, Sturmers, Kidd's Orange Red and some others are very good. The Laxton's Epicure seem to have set almost every fruitlet and will require radical thinning. I'll try to do that this weekend.

The annual chafer beetle plague, at it's height 10 days ago, has passed with less damage than we had in the last three years. They bit holes in a lot of fruitlets before they died from the urgent pesticide application Julia and I applied the previous weekend. I posted a video on YouTube to show the true horror of our annual infestation of this extremely destructive pest and to underline the absolute necessity of effective crop protection when facing this kind of threat.

There is also some scab appearing on the leaves, it is worst on the Le Bret cider apples which are very susceptible. We omitted the usual combined fungicide and insecticide pre-blossom spray as the weather was so fine in March. Of course, it then rained for weeks! Wet weather both promotes scab (a fungal disease which likes the wet) and prevents spraying against it. This omission of the pre-blossom spray, often considered the most critical crop protection of the year, now looks like an error of judgment.

I've said more about spraying in this post than I usually do. I know its not a popular subject, and we both hate it, but I'm just trying to be real. Sorry I can't give details of actual preparations used, suffice it to say that Julia and I both have our pesticide application certificates after a course and exam at Spartsholt Agricultural College and obey all relevant regulations including keeping records which the authorities can inspect. The bottom line on spraying and health is that we are living much longer than a few generations ago, 10 years longer on average, and one reason for this whcih nobody disputes is better, fresher fruit, available all year round. The great health benefits of all this fruit would not have been available without pest control. Sorry, that's how it is. We use a lot less than the industry standard, not least as we have to hump and pump it by hand. A commercial tractor pulled spray rig would cost at least 6 years's turnover.

On that slightly sombre note, we have come through several significant challenges in the orchard so far and hope for a great year!


see you.

Hi everyone apple blossom is falling...

Wow, when am I going to stop taking the 'too busy, too tired, too much to do' tablets? In fact I got an estimate on the value of my NHS pension recently and its NEARLY enough to live on given we have no debt, some savings, modest expectations, enough income from my medical lecturing to pay for holidays. But my Protestant work ethic conscience tells me to keep doctoring 'til I drop. I think I need to re-train my conscience before I DO drop! I'll be reflecting on this during a forthcoming holiday.

Anyway, this is actually the first time I've even visited this blog since last autumn, I concentrate on the YouTube channel which is coming up to it's 3 millionth view. APOLOGIES to those who posted here ince then, I will reply to specific enquiries presently.

Blossom on the plums was great, but the frost and heavy rain since then has led to what looks like a small set. Julia also thinks the extreme dryness during blossom may have been an issue too. Dryest sunniest March ever followed by wettest coldest April on record.

'No one so surely pays his debt
As wet to dry, as dry to wet.'

I plan to post a video on the stephenhayesuk Youtube channel about that. Hope everyone's doing OK.

I read aloud an email from a friend who said he had been inspired to plant trees by my videos. this is high praise indeed, it means a lot to get an email of thanks like that. I honestly don't think I'm that brilliant a grower or teacher, more of a storyteller who likes the sound of his own voice, thrives on compliments (let's be honest!?!) and wants to pass the orchard blessing on. Thanks for agreeing that the story of our orchard is worth telling. I will probably continue to mostly tell it on the tube but will try to put sonme still images and notes up here, and of course our 2012 market details when they are clear. It will be mainly Winchester and Fareham Farmer's Markets as usual plus our Apple Day event, will post dates by midsummer.

As Arthur Ransom wrote in 'Rod and Line'


'Damson blossom had fallen and apple blossom was full in the orchard by the river'
see y'all.

season almost over

Wow!! that was a year....

2 more Farmer's markets, one Winchester and one Fareham. The Kidd's Orange Reds are still sound and taste beautifully sweet, almost floral, but are harder to sell as they're not CRUNCHY. A lot of them are going to end up in Jez's cider. The Egremeonts likewise have passed their best, the WInter Kings are still great, not as tasty as the Kidd's but they are CRUNCHY.


The Sturmer Pippins are just coming ripe, they will I think last into March now but we don't have enough of them to justify markets, leat alone the miserable cold markets of early January when nobody has any money after our overdone midwinter holiday spendfest, so will likewise go into cider.

I ordered some winter Nellis pear trees which are due any day, they will go into gaps where plums died of bacterial plum canker. A hateful disease against which there is no legal remedy we know of, it seems to thrive in our microclimate. Pity, the plums do well. They take 5 years growing, pay for themselves in the first year of serious cropping, crop well for 3-7 years, then die. But they do so well, we are planting half a dozen every couple of years in rotation around the holding. With plums, we can get into the market a month earlier than our first apples.

Pears did famously too this year, proving the correctness of removing unprofitable Braml;ey's and surplus Sunsets 3 years ago. Our customers oculdn;t get enough of them, although we did lose some sales as fruit went off when we went to the Cropredy misuc festival.

More later as we look back on the year.

Apple Day and Folk Music event

on 29th October 2011 at the usual place, Durley Memorial Hall, Durley Street in (er..) Durley we will be having our usual Apple Day fruit exhibition and sale PLUS a folk music event. more details later but essentially


12.30-23.00
real ale and cider bar (at least 2 real ales including Gringo's Gold from the local Botley brewery. Cider from 146 cider (made from our apples, won a prize at Southampton beer and cider festival)

apple exhibition and sales (Sorry no attempted fruit identification, I will be very busy on the day it takes me too long to ID apples for free and I'm not good enough at it to charge a fee! attempted self ID from our books and the exhibition is available)

afternoon singaround led by trad folk superstar Rob Mills

music session led by fiddle legend Cath Watkins

lunchtime ploughmans with decent ham or Lyburn real cheese from Winchester

hog roast from about 5 pm

vegetarian alternative (potato curry and lentil and chick pea curries, possibly onion bhajiis)


EVENING CONCERT 7.30 for 8 kick off

Green Man Morris perform an autumn mummers play
George Wilson
Woodlands Village Band
Contraband
Jigfoot

admission free until evening concert, £7.00 then

ALL PROFITS (after hall rent, cost of beer + food etc) TO TOOLS FOR SELF RELIANCE a marvellous charity which refurbishes old tools and sends them to villages in Africa to help people work themselves out of poverty

look forward to seeing old friends and new.

Stephen and Julia Hayes and friends

Fruitwise Market dates 2011

Fruitwise Heritage Apples Sales 2011

These are the sales listed in calendar sequence, time mentioned after each first mention of venue. Directions are easily checked out on line so I won’t clutter this notice with details most of you won’t need.

Sun 31st July Winchester Farmer’s market 9-2 (PLUMS)

Sat 6th August Fareham Farmer’s Market 9-2 (PLUMS & early apples)

Sun 28th August Winchester FM

Sat 3rd September Fareham FM

Sun 11th September Winchester FM

Sat 17th Botley Apple Day + orchard art exhibition, 1.0-4.30 Market Hall, Botley high street

Sun 25th September Winchester FM

Sat 1st October Fareham FM

Sat 1st and Sunday 2nd October harvest festival autumn market, Winchester Cathedral 9-2

Sat 8th October Pumpkin and autumn fair, Royal Victoria Country Park, Netley 12.00-5.30 for details see www.jst.hampshire.org.uk admission charge adults £2.00, children 50p plus parking. Band and lots of fun, for Jubilee Sailing Trust charity.

Sunday 9th October Winchester

Saturday 22nd October Damerham Apple Day, village hall, Damerham (western New Forest) 12-4

Saturday 29th October Durley Memorial Hall, Durley. Apple Day and folk concert midday to 11pm. all profits to go to Tools for Self reliance. great local bands, arts and crafts, hog roast, local real ales and cider. Exhibition of apples. £8 for music concert.

Sunday 23rd October Bishop’s Waltham FM 10-2

Sunday 30th October Winchester FM

Saturday 5th November Fareham FM

Sunday 6th November Romsey FM 10-2

Sunday 13th November Winchester FM

Sunday 27th November Winchester FM


Saturday 3rd December Fareham FM

Sunday 11th December Winchester FM

Saturday 17th December Fareham FM

Hope to see old friends and new. if you have any special requests or questions email on steveappleseed@hotmail.co.uk

Apple tree grafting after care

much needed rain and graft after care

The weather has been lovely lately-beautiful rain! It would have been perfect if we could have had half of it a month ago, but our water butts are full (for the vegetables) and ht eearth and trees refreshed.

I must take some still photos to upload here, for the last few years I have concentrated on the YouTube channel whcih has developed quite an international following with 1,600 subscribers and 1,890,000 views so far.

The latest video I posted yesterday is also the longest ever at 15 minutes, and that was after editing. Several people have tried their hand at grafting after watching my videos, and I was getting a few requests about troubleshooting and after care. I'll see if I can post a link.

heavy fruit set

Hi everyone, sorry again few posts here-I have been catastrophically busy. I have just completed 2 weeks annual leave from the daytime job, if I tell you that I didn't get fishing even once -in MAY!!! , even given that I paid up front for a season ticket on a local trout lake, plus coarse fishing club, you will know I have been busy. Boring stuff like tidying the shed, clearing out the apple store and cider house, washing bottles, making a huge new bottle rack, spraying, spraying, spraying, blending and bottling the 2010 cider (only so-so quality I'm afraid due to weather related ripeness problems) taking junk to the car boot sale and then unsold stuff to the dump. I even did some medical teaching, including a time critical course planning meeting with colleagues which with other people's inflexibilities could only be held in my holiday, a local teaching assignment (if you turn it down, you might not get asked again) and a trip to Birmingham after an anxious phone call from a national learning organisation I work with who were let down by a speaker pulling out a week before. Oh well, they paid me well and I earned some good little boy points, but all the same.........

Above all, it has been orchard work and as I type I have pins and needles in my fingers from all the FRUIT THINNING. I have YouTubed about this, plus the heavy stump removal work I also did. Due to the hot sunny weather on the blossom , there has been a ridiculously heavy fruit set on the plums, we have had to reduce by 80% to get decent fruit size and avoid broken branches. The apples are less extreme but still a lot of work. Today is Bank Holiday Mondaty, and after breakfast I will be off to the orchard to thin about 45 Lord Lambourne which have a heavy set. Due to good control of pest and disease problems (the Calypso did for the blasted ground chafer bugs that wiped out a third of our crop this time last year, although they still damaged a lot of fruit. The flock of starlings helped a lot too) the fruit are growing fast and well.

We are beginning to see and feel the benefit of removing so many fruit trees over the last 2 winters. The Lambournes I mentioned on MM106 9 feet apart are now 18 feet apart due to the removal of alternate trees. Drastic, and arm aching work with spade and axe (some helpful wags on YouTube suggested explosives or a tractor, we have access to neither and didn't want the collateral damage!), but now the trees are filling out into the space. We can get around them more easily to mow, thin, prune and spray and even in the first year after a 50% tree reduction we think the saleable crop will only be down 30% due to easier, therefore better, management and more light and air penetration. And indeed, better water foraging for the roots. The drought continues..................

will try to take some still pics to post, usually I forget as I make videos for the YouTube channel, see stephenhayesuk. Bye for now

Blossom due, even begun!!!

Its raining gently today, thanks God, but last week's very warm sunshine after a dry, mild March led to opening of the peach blossom (Julia planted 2 peaches by the apple store) and over the weekend the damson blossom is almost open. There is due to be a catastrophically beautifal show of bl;opssom on hte new pear orchard, where I am training to pyramids on an absolutel minimum pruning regime and there is tight fruit bud right to the tips of most of the pear trees. Its going to be the blossom show of the decade. Will post images later. Once again, the daytime job has got out of hand since November and I have been posting videos on YouTube so tended to neglect this blog, but will try to post some kind of orchard diary this growing season. Kind regards. PS an old friend came unexpectedly round last night asking for an apple tree. I told him thet Blackmoors had just sent out an email saying today was theuir last date for bare rooted orders as the season had moved on. Decided to let him have 2 young trees at his risk but will need watering like mad. It is now really too late to plant for this year. STOP PRESS Apple day and folk music even planned for Durley Memorial hall Saturday 29th October, tickets will be £7 in advance, £8 on the door and all profits for the noble recycling and development charity Tools for Self Reliance. Much more on this later but keep the date free.

Almost spring!!!

Hi everyone, its nearly springtime! I have been very busy with the job that earns the money (doctoring and teaching about skin cancer diagnosis) and have also got so mixed up with ever changing complexifications of passwords and accounts that I hardly ever come here, but will try to make a few posts this year. Most of the action has been on my YouTube channel where I am currently looking at grafting. see you all later

Hi, I'm back

Hi everyone. Sorry about my failure to respond to comments posted here, I will try to catch up.

Truth is I've had a busy year with work and family and I have been concentrating on my YouTube channel, which you can find easily enough. I am just a few views short of a million and almost 1,000 subscribers. The limited time I have interfacing with the world about my orchard has gone into this. And I lost my pasword, it got all conmplexified and I all but forgot about this blog.

The orchard is not in a happy state due to the drought and a severe infstation of red spider mite. I have just struggld throughthe logstics of gettnig some serious acaricide which Julia began applying today (I know, the women do all the hard work, I meanwhile was at the clinic earning money that keeps the apple project afloat).

I expect to post more often from now on, bt anyone interested in the week by week goings on at the orchard woudl be better off subscribing to my YouTube channel.

all the best, back shortly

Wassailing

Wassailing has been in the news recently, with the usual discussions about what is the correct dates, origins of the custom, what to drink etc. There was an item on our local BBC TV news programme yesterday evening, which was fun but slightly annoying for reasons I'll mention.


We usually have a wassail on the second Saturday of January, mainly for our friends in Wickham Morris. Regrettably, due to the exceptional weather it was necessary to cancel due to the state of the roads approaching the orchard. Ordinarily they are merely very bad with potholes, narrow, neglected and winding with horses and their riders 'Ectually, eh DO own the road, dahling!' round every corner, but add to this an inch of compacted ice and it would have been irresponsible as well as just too much like very hard work to go ahead.


We were first asked to consider making our orchard available for a wassail about 11 years ago after moving to Botley, when I joined Wickham Morris as a mandolin player. The Morris squire was sensitive to the fact that as Christians we might have a problem with a 'pagan' practice. I researched wassailing and couldn't find anything any necesarily more 'pagan' about it than, for example, string quartets or harvest suppers. We made a start and apart from a few cancellations or greatly reduced celebrations due to inclement weather have done our 3 wassail for 10 years, with up to 100 guests.


Your good health!


The word 'wassail', as one of the team said on the TV past night, is an Anglo Saxon greeting or salutation meaning 'good health' or 'be thou whole!', so if that's 'pagan' then so is wishing someone good morning or happy birthday. The 'essential' ingredients for a wassail are some sort of communal warm spiced drink, generally cider or beer based, some song and fun outdoors, or at the door of a big house where some food and drink would be brought out. This latter sort of wassail is described in Thomas Hardy's novel 'Under the Greenwood Tree' where the members of the 'Mellstock Quire' perform sacred and secular songs from door to door in the village where they are both the 'barn dance' and church music group. Several of the traditional wassail songs request food and drink to be brought out to the revellers in the street, or let them in and give them 'your mouldy cheese and some of your Christmas loaf'.


Guns and cider don't mix!



The Somerset/west country wassailing custom is more to do with orchards, and 'traditionally' involved a bonfire, discharge of shotguns into the trees, putting toast in the trees 'for the robins' , beating the trees with sticks, and sundry other customs. Morris dancing is NOT part of any wassail tradition, but has been inserted since Morris dance sides are just the sort of folks who want to do wassailing!


There is no authoritative wassail 'tradition', and just as with Morris dancing itself, wassailing has been re-invented as various folks saw fit, picking and choosing which bits to include, leave out, or make up. We certainly leave out the guns, although they are very traditional. We put bags of peanuts and fat balls in the trees for the small birds, and have also added to the tradition by putting up bird boxes in some of the larger trees! We sometimes pray and give thanks to the God of the orchard, well I do anyway. He will see to any evil spirits, they're not afraid of sticks or guns! I see the tradition as neither Christian nor pagan, merely 'folk' or 'people', or 'country'. Or indeed, just fun with friends and a seasonal reflection.



Some people find the idea of 'paganism' very exciting, certainly more 'sexy' than Richard Dawkins' stark atheist materialism which is increasingly being rammed down our throats, others are profoundly put off by it. This is not the time or place for a sermon or long essay on Christmas trees, Puritanism, symbolism in Christianity etc, and I don't particularly want a load of comments on this. But to strongly assert that wasailing is 'pagan' could mean Christians felt the need to avoid wassailing, which would be a pity.

Anyhow, Wassail to all!

RECIPE

simmer some orange zest (remove with a potato peeler, then squeeze in the orange juice and discard the pith) and an orange stuffed with a dozen cloves in 2 pints of apple juice with a stick or 2 of cinnamon for half an hour or so. Add 6 pints of strong dry cider, add sugar to taste and bring up to a sensible temperature and serve in stone mugs, preferably around a bonfire with good friends in an orchard.

SONG (irregular, to tune of 'the miller of Dee' or similar. Or whatever you like!)

Old apple tree, we wassail thee
and hope that thou dost bear
for the Lord does know where we shall be
when apples come again another year

for to bear well, and to bloom well,
how happy we shall be
let every man take off his hat
and shout to the old apple tree

old apple tree, we wassail thee
and hope that thou dost bear
hats full, caps full
bushels, bags and barrels full
and a little heap under the stair

hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!