Along with our house, we acquired three apple trees and a greengage tree. All of the apple trees produce cooking apples; Bramleys to be precise. We have had so much fruit. The greengage only fruits on alternate years but one of the Bramleys has produced hundreds of pounds of apples each year.
Obviously, fruit trees don't last for ever. We were also keen to have some eating apples so planted some more apple trees both four years ago and two years ago. Old fashioned varieties which aren't always easy to buy in the shops.
We hope to have a little fruit from these, for the first time, this year. We might have had some earlier if it hadn't been for squirrels and little people. Perhaps, the greatest benefit from these trees may be for future generations.
A long term gardening project but once in place they need relatively little maintenance-the picture shows that we aren't into much garden maintenance! The trees are probably require the least effort of our fruit and vegetables and produce the greatest return.
We are grateful.
It is good to go into winter with a freezer full of fruit.
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Frugal Gardening 101
Hi, what do you do with the apples? Do you have an apple-peeling machine? We get some apples but it is an old tree - and the infants raid it.
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The majority of the apples are Bramleys so we cook them in various guises-apple sauce, chicken and apple casserole, jelly, jam, crumble, pie, apple cakes etc. We freeze as much as possible with the aim of being able to use them at a slower rate through the year before everyone gets completely fed up with apples!
ReplyDeleteWe try to off load them onto our friends, we can't usually deal with the volume! You are very welcome to some.
I borrowed an apple peeling machine, last year, but found the assembly a bit fiddly although it was very fast. Generally, I peel by hand and am quite fast after so much practice. It does seem to take the children quite a while to get the hang of peeling.
I suspect that our smaller trees will be raided by little people again especially as the apples taste good uncooked.
What a gift to have so many apples! Our neighbor has an apple tree that our children love to climb and pick from.
ReplyDeleteIts hard to grow trees up here in Northern Canada, but my parents used to have little crab trees. They used to taste so much better than from the store but there were never enough to really do anything with them.
ReplyDeleteThinking about getting apple and peach trees. I just don't know where I'd put them. Your apples look very juicy. Blessings!
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