~ Apple Picking ~

Our first year’s crop was a bumper one and with masses of fruit appearing in the orchard the challenge was how to harvest it. In the words of a well known song ‘we got by with a little help from our friends’ as family and friends of neighbours Henry and Amy joined in the fun. Various techniques were tried, the most effective involved shaking branches with a set of ladders and as the apples came thundering down they were caught by the brave amongst us holding an improvised tarpaulin which, whilst this helped to lessen the bruising on the apples, did nothing to prevent a few bumps on the head!

In all we picked around 600lbs of cider and eating apples, which another of our neighbours, Julian, kindly took off for pressing in a traditional cider press, where ‘cheeses’ (apple pulp wrapped in hessian) were racked between layers straw.  The resulting juice was a delight to the taste buds and all the more satisfying for having worked to get it.

In our second year we invested in an apple crusher and press of our own and once again enjoyed the taste of freshly squeezed juice.

We invite you to think about joining us for our next Apple Picking Day

If you’d like to come e-mail us beforehand so we have an idea of numbers and let us know if you’d like to join us for supper or stay over.