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!

Book review-'Grow Your Own Fruit' by Carol Klein & RHS

Here's a book review I have just added to my page of fruit and cider book reviews on my http://www.fruitwise.net/ web site, which I am gradually rebuilding after a provider problem. I intend to add reviews of Ciderland by James Crowden, Cider by CAMRA and Craft Cider by Andrew Lea when I find time.


Grow your Own Fruit (Carol Klein and Royal Horticultural Society)
Mitchell Beazley, ISBN 978-1-84533-434-5
hard back 224 pages

I borrowed this book from the library to have a look. It aims to be a comprehensive guide to all sort of fruit growing in the garden, headed up by the popular presenter Carol Klein from BBC's 'Gardener's World' which we usually watch when its on, although I've never really enjoyed it so much since Geoff Hamilton died. Partly nostalgia, partly other reasons I won't bore you with. Its a perfectly decent modern version of that old staple 'The General Purpose Fruit Growing Book' for the average gardener, covering everything from strawberries to melons, and although I prefer the Fruit Garden Displayed, this is a very decent substitute, especially if you like lots (I mean LOTS) of atmospheric colour photographs to look at, and of course if you're a fan of Carol. I'm not particularly, I mention for balance, but I mean no offence and its a decent book.



I haven't read every word, but where I have checked details against my knowledge, it's at least OK. On Quince and Medlars for example, she gets it right about culture, varieties, and how to store and use these somewhat unusual (but worthwhile) fruits. The advice on planting and pruning apples, pears, plums, bush fruit etc are fine (apart from one photo on page 79 showing a very protuberant angled pruning cut which I would never accept) details like removing water shoots, how to hold the secateurs (blade side nearest the tree) are 'industry standard' correct. There is a very acceptable section on pests and diseases which, unusually for anything associated with the 'organic'-fundamentalist BBC, actually mentions specific chemical pesticides necessary to achieve clean fruit. I don't agree with her choice of featured apples, for example I think Discovery is rubbish and she omits many of my top favourites, but that's perfectly normal-long live personal preference in such matters! And none of us knows it all, which is why its good to read more than one account and compare and contrast different writers.



Critical details about rootstocks, training restricted forms, pollination times, the (often neglected) need to thin fruits etc are present and correct. Grafting is not covered, but this is a populist BBC spin off book and most people don't graft, so that's not a major criticism. She does mention a number of old and new apple varieties and, importantly, draws attention to their faults, for example biennial cropping and large size of Blenheim Orange, short shelf life of the otherwise excellent cooker Grenadier, Cox's sickliness (like me, she more or less says 'great flavour, but best avoided'), the need to thin Sunset to avoid tiny fruits, etc. This is a good point-never trust a fruit book that heaps unstinting praise on every variety. Apples like Sunset are worth growing, just remember to thin them, etc. Apple faults are OK, up to a point, as long as you KNOW about them.



This is a comprehensive book which covers nearly all aspects of fruit gardening. I could have enjoyed it as much, possibly more, with fewer pictures of Carol smiling and posing for the camera and a few more of, for example, how prune fruit trees. There are 8 pages on gooseberries (8 pages? Almost nobody can RECOGNISE a gooseberry these days!)-there could have been a decent overview of cider in 8 whole pages. Most likely any reasonable person approaching fruit growing for the first time or wanting to gain more understanding, try some new sorts of fruit and generally do better will find this a pleasant fireside or bedtime book. Its certainly easy reading with so many pretty pictures. I think it might have been a better book for less detail on minor fruits like citrus, melons, gooseberries etc, and the space saved used for recipes for processing surpus fruit into goodies like chutney, cider and jam. But thats only a personal opinion.


VERDICT Certainly worth getting out of the library, although I don't think I'll be buying a copy, but then I do have a large collection of fruit books already. Priced at a very reasonable £16.99, this would make a very acceptable Christmas present for almost any gardener, and is certain better than many of the comparable older 'general purpose fruit grower' books in my collection. But I still prefer the Fruit Garden Displayed.

November 2009.

cider video from Sheppey's and Burrow Hill

I have just seen this quite nice video with accompanying text on the Daily Mail online, looking at my 2 favourite cider makers, Sheppeys and Burrow Hill. do have a browse.


http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid6051581001?bctid=45534760001

FINAL 2009 MARKET-WInchester 8th November

STOP PRESS yesterday we carried out an assessment and sorting of the fruit in store and were left with just 30 boxes of sound fruit , mainly Sunset and Egremont Russet with also some Suntan, Kidd's Orange Red and Winter King. We need 10 boxes for a Fareham and 20 for a Winchester, so today Julia telephoned to pull us out of all markets for 2009 bar the Fareham this Saturday and Winchester on Sunday. We'll lose money on this, its too bad, you have to bid for places at the markets a year in advance and fruit yields can't be predicted so far ahead.


We'll be sorry to say goodbye to our friends until next July when we are hopefully back with the plums and earliest apples, but its been a hard year for various reasons and we're thrashed so we'll be glad of a temporary rest until pruning begins. I'll say a bit more about the ups and downs of the 2009 season later, but for now, just to advise folks of our inevitable decision, we can't sell fruit we don't have.

Basically, the Kidd's Orange red and a few other varieties were diminished by fungal dsease and bitter pit largely due to weather, and the Lord Lambourne crop (about 15% of our total and our main early autumn apple)failed abysmally, so to serve October markets we had to offer our Winter King, which we normally keep until later, but its been so warm this autumn that we had to bring them forward in any event as nothing has been keeping as well as usual. Fruit quality has been very good, with high sugar levels due to the warm late summer and autumn, but here we are out of fruit, I think earlier than every before.

We are begining to reflect on the season gone by and think about future plans, which may have to include refrigeration if we want to trade up to and beyond Christmas.

Anyway, good cheer to all and lets try to enjoy the autumn, despite the miserable prospect of a General Election next year in which either David Cameron or Gordon Brown will become Prime Minister. Nothing we can do about it so lets try to think about happy things, like the autumn leaves, bonfires, friends and the new cider.

CANCELLED MARKETS-SOLD OUT OF FRUIT

For various reasons, we are all but out of fruit and so have to pull out off all remaining markets this year except Sunnyfields this coming Saturday, the next 2 Winchesters and the next 2 Farehams. This is due to a somewhat low 2009 crop (Lord Lambourne failed dismally) fruit ripening quickly and not keeping well due to the very warm autumn, and extremely good sales with a lot of repeat customers.

we're really sorry, but had to make this decision as frankly we only just have enough apples for the above markets. We had hoped to have some Sturmer Pippin for the later markets but when we picked these yesterday it became clear that more than half of them suffered with bitter pit. This is a physiological disorder caused by trace element deficiency and irregular rainfall which makes the fruit taste bitter from brown spots in the flesh.

I may put up a video about bitter pit later, but for now it means we don't have any Sturmer Pippins, which means a premature end to our season. We would have held back our Winter Kings for later markets, but people really seem to like this on free tastings in October, so we are almost sold out of our late apples since we lost the mid season Lord Lambourne.

Very high specific gravities on the juice, due to warm autumn and reasonable summer sun levels, so there should be some good cider later. High sugar levels obviously can mean high alcohol levels, but also could mean some very naturally sweet ciders and also hopefully high flavour levels. I am only making 40 gallons for our own use and parties etc and wont be selling any cider, but I know someone who will be! A friend has taken most of our windfalls and half a ton of bittersweet west country cider apples and these are being made into cider which will be sold in 2010 under his own brand as a single orchard boutique cider from our apples. Contact details will go up later.

more later

Work continues on web site rebuild

Our Apple Day event is past, I have pressed most of the cider I am going to press this year, and I am finding a little time to slowly rebuild the http://www.fruitwise.net/ web site. The new Yahoo web builder is reasonably easy to use. I am concentrating on putting back up most of the old informative content with little editing, not least to help folks who are thinking about planting trees this coming planting season. I have just put up sections on varieties, pest and diseases, and brief notes on grafting. These, and my notes on pruning, have been largely superceded by my YouTube http://www.youtube.com/stephenhayesuk videos, which have now received over 420,000 views. Its now of course much easier to blend all these elements all but seamlessly. I'll work on it, and also add as many related links as I can.

As I have said before, I share from the heart and mind but I'm still only an enthusiastic amateur and my word isn't Gospel-check out what I've written, and check out whatever else you can find before deciding what to plant.

If you are after planting West Country style cider apples, and a lot of people are this year, Dabinett is the 'nobody got fired for buying' favourite, a regular cropper and compact tree which has a fairly strong bitter sweet juice, as does its cousin Harry Master's Jersey, and these 2 must be the first choices for the beginner who wants to make some 'proper zider'. I advise beginenrs to avoid the famously delectable but very fickle growing cider apple Kingston Black, for the same reason I would avoid Cox's Orange Pippin as a dessert apple-great quality, but very difficult to grow and crop reliably. But do consider other apples such as the lovely Yarlington Mill. It doesn't crop every single year, but see the picture of the back of my mate Jez's car taken in the orchard yesterday (he ran out of boxes!). That is about half the crop from ONE TREE. Admittedly a 20 year old big spreading tree, and it didn't crop at all last year, but WHAT A GENEROUS TREE! Great medium bittersweet cider variety which will enhance any cider.