Mellow Fruitfulness for your Diary

Courier Countryside Column  13 September

Enjoying the Fruits of a really fun autumn

I hope you didn’t think I was being disparaging about village events in Britain while extolling the delights of those in the south of France.

Back home, and the diary is already filling with excellent autumn activities.  First up is the joyful jazz and blues evening my little hamlet hosts, with people picnicking on the grass, supping real ales and Pimms and enjoying the music.

Meanwhile nearby Cranbrook is preparing for a rather more ambitious music festival this weekend taking over churches, halls, pubs and clubs and turning streets into pedestrian only areas from mid-day on Saturday. 

It will be followed next month by the town’s annual Apple and History Fayre which always brings out the more eccentric townsfolk who provide street entertainment in zany costumes.  But be warned, it’s hard to get away without having samples of strong cider thrust into your hand.

Which reminds me, I must get onto the people who make the cider from our community orchard apples and find out how much juice they want this year.  We’ve been delighted to find a market for a few of our apples – for years they all just rotted on the ground - but the actual logistics involved are daunting.

Because they are all on old-fashioned full standard trees, picking is difficult, often requiring ladders which makes it uneconomic to employ professionals.  But even if we can find enough volunteers, we then have to transport tons of apples in large bins several miles to the people who press them for us. And then we have to bring the juice back to the local cider maker.  It would be fine if we had a fork-lift and capacious flatbed truck – but instead my little overloaded car trailer has to suffice.

Another problem is that we’ve never been able to identify all the old apple varieties we have, which makes selling direct to shops or supermarkets difficult. And there’s no one on the management committee who has the time needed to market them.  Anyone fancy a commission-based opportunity?

What we certainly do need is help with picking.  We have a big push on our Apple Day, 6^th October. It’s a great afternoon out in the countryside with a BBQ, a chance to try last year’s cider and the opportunity to take home a large bag or two of excellent organic produce.  Another date for your increasingly busy autumn diary perhaps?