We are drowning in apples. It’s a bumper crop here, much more so than in previous years. We have 7 apple trees altogether, and not only have they been ripe since the end of August – a month early! – but there’s just so many of them. We’ve harvested two full trees and parts of a third and fourth, and we’re up to 160kg of apples. That’s a lot of apples!
They’re stacked in cardboard crates in the doctors’ surgery.
And in the library.
The wardrobe in the doctors’ surgery is also full of them.
The house smells delightful. There’s a fabulous quotation from Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders that I’m always reminded of this time of year:
He looked and smelt like Autumn’s very brother, his face being sunburnt to wheat-colour, his eyes blue as corn-flowers, his sleeves and leggings dyed with fruit-stains, his hands clammy with the sweet juice of apples, his hat sprinkled with pips, and everywhere about him the sweet atmosphere of cider which at its first return each season has such an indescribable fascination for those who have been born and bred among the orchards.
The ‘he’ in question is Giles Winterbourne, and he has just come back to the woods from a day selling his cider. It’ll be cider-making time here soon enough, and I look forward to sharing our cider-making adventures with you. Last year we got 9 litres of sweet, crisp, apple-licious cider. I dread to think how much there’ll be this year!
We have big apples and small apples, red apples and green apples and crab apples.
We have cookers, and eaters.
We’ve made jam, and apple crumble, and apple cake. The pets love them, too – even the cats are intrigued.
Let me know your favourite apple recipes – I can’t wait!
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