A carpet of apples on the ground beneath an apple tree is an all too common sight in the autumn and was the reason for the formation of the community juicing project than I am involved with. Over the past 10 years we have juiced around 35 tons of unwanted apples just from our small area so why is there so much unwanted fruit?
English apples are acknowledged as the best in the world. We are fortunate to live in the ‘Goldilocks zone’ for apple cultivation, with just the right amount of heat and cold, sun and rain for the fruit to flourish. Add that to a history of apple cultivation that goes back hundreds of years and you have a rich diversity of beautiful tasty fruit with more than 2000 named varieties and many more ‘local’ varieties that are not even officially recorded. So given all that, why is it that I can walk into any supermarket and only find a choice of maybe 3 or 4 varieties of apple, with the likelihood that most of them are imported, whilst in gardens and orchards round about there is fruit rotting on the ground? In recent years there have been calls from both government agencies and conservation groups for people to plant orchards, even generous grants available, yet it would appear that we don’t even use all the fruit that is currently growing so what is going wrong?
The golden age of English apple growing was in the late 1800’s. There were orchards in every town and village, plenty of people to help with the harvest and a new rail network to move the fruit quickly to markets in the cities. Things began to change after the first world war, when there were fewer able bodied men to harvest fruit from traditional (very tall) orchard trees so new rootstocks were developed that did not grow so tall and many old orchards were grubbed up. The decline continued slowly through the twentieth century, then the combination of supermarkets with their huge, centralised buying power and rapidly expanding international trade sounded the death knell for many smaller local producers who just couldn’t compete. The British public fell victim to glossy advertising campaigns for specific commercial varieties and got used to the limited, but reliable, offerings of perfectly formed imported fruit. I can still remember when Golden Delicious from France arrived on our supermarket shelves in the early 1970’s with mass advertising campaigns so that it became THE apple to eat. What were we thinking? The result of this change to our buying habits was that conservation of our diverse apple heritage was left largely to home gardeners and a few enthusiasts.
There are still remnants of some of those old orchards, often on the edge of agricultural land or odd trees in gardens of old houses or housing estates that have been built on former orchard sites but the vast majority of the unwanted fruit brought to our juicing project comes from trees planted in orchards and gardens in the last 60 years. These trees have been deliberately planted but the fruit is left to rot – why?
One of the most common questions we are asked at the Northern Fruit Group is “I want to plant some apple trees, what should I grow?” I always respond with two questions, why do you want to plant apple trees and what are you going to do with all the fruit? A normal, garden sized, apple tree can produce over 150kg of fruit a year once it is mature. Plant 3 trees and you are heading towards half a ton of apples – that is an awful lot of fruit. Add to that the fact that early ripening varieties will only keep for a few weeks before becoming inedible, certainly not long enough to eat more than 100kg, and you can see why there might be a problem. There is also the fact that we have got used to the limited number of varieties available commercially, so we eat what we know. These apples are specifically bred for easy transport and long keeping so many people have forgotten the joy of the various shapes, sizes, flavours and textures on offer in other varieties.
I would encourage anyone with even a tiny amount of outside space to think about growing an apple tree or two. Nothing that you can buy will ever match the flavour of a ripe apple fresh from your own garden but first do the research and find out which of the many varieties you like. If you can’t find examples to taste then speak to someone who knows about apples, tell them what sort of apple you like. Crisp, sweet, sharp, do you want to use them for eating, cooking or both? would you like to be able to store them to use through the winter or do you want them all ripe around the same time for juicing? All of these factors can point you in the right direction. There is no point in growing something with an interesting name or history if you don’t actually like the taste and texture of the fruit.
Apple trees are very easy to grow and look after but unless you can really use a potentially large crop then perhaps grow your trees as upright cordons that will give a couple of dozen fresh tasty apples, with no waste. Growing them this way means that they will fit into even the smallest garden and you can have several varieties without being overwhelmed with fruit. There is a wealth of tasty and interesting flavours out there just waiting to be rediscovered and as a member of the Northern Fruit Group you have access to free advice and practical training to help you grow your fruit successfully.
The Northern Fruit Group 