The Apple Club Newsletter

Spring 2001

Welcome to the spring issue of our Newsletter. We welcome feedback from you, our readers, and we hope to hear from you or see you in the near future.

Where do apples come from?

The original apple forests of the world still exist today on the slopes of Kazakhstan's Tian Shan or heavenly mountains. The city of Alma-ata (meaning "father of apples") sits between two rushing glacial streams which run from these mountains. This city has been a trading centre on the silk route since the time of Alexander the Great. As little as fifty years ago the deep ravines and undulating hills behind the city were covered by forests of wild apples and apricots. Green, red, orange, yellow - rusty and smooth, large and sweet, small and bitter - apples were king.
Because the apple has survived for so long on these slopes, and because until recently it has been undisturbed by man, it has retained a rich genetic diversity. The modern apples we find in the shops represent but a tiny slice of all possible apples that have existed in the world. They are the descendants of thousands of years of selection by man for colour, size, shape and taste. But they are also the chance descendants of the fruit and seedlings carried by travellers of the Silk Route and wild birds and animals that ate the fruit and spread the seed as it passed through their digestive tracts. The apples that reached Persia, Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, and eventually central and northern Europe contain less than 20 percent of the genetic material found in these ancient Asian forests. Locked away in the genetic codes of that other 80 percent are tantalising apples of yet unknown taste. Apples of wonderful fragrance, rich colours and unimaginable texture. Apples which could be the basis of new untasted juices and ciders.
Hopefully these forests will be preserved for the benefit of apple-eaters and growers everywhere.

The Apple Farm (by Willem Traas)

In this issue I try to answer the question many people have asked over the years, why did you leave your home country and come to Ireland? Well, that we came to Ireland was a coincidence. It could have been New Zealand or Australia for instance. But why did we leave our home-country? About twenty years ago I began writing little stories. One of these is called My father's Orchard. I think that it gives some kind of answer as to why we left our home-country and did not go back.
When I go to sleep I go back to the land where I grew up. Back to the village with orchards; to the apple trees, the pear trees, the cherries and the soft fruit, when I was a child some 50 years ago.
It is showery and cold in the early summer and we are trying to harvest the fruit. Somehow we have already forgotten to pick the strawberries but we are now on high ladders in the cherry trees. My father is there with the workers and I am there, 10 years of age, to help. My father needs help. I pick cherries, sort out the cracked and rotten cherries on the grading bench, and with the white horse pulling the cart I bring the cherries away for selling. And the starlings have to be kept out of the crop. Starlings are the biggest curse in cherry growing.
On a Sunday afternoon I have to hunt the starlings out, on my own. They are coming, in dark flocks landing in the trees, and over the ground they come, stealing in. Starlings feed like gulls, they cut and savage the cherries; sticky red sap is dreeping off the leaves. On some trees there is nothing left but stained leaves and stalks with bare stones. I cycle through the muddy ground, shouting and throwing clods at the starlings and when I think I have them scared away I hear them again in another part of the orchard.
What a long time an afternoon is for a child.
I hunt the starlings out very many times but finally let them eat away. Defeated I lie on the grading bench in the centre of the orchard and I hear the fluttering and the screeching of the starlings come nearer and nearer. They are in the tree beside me now; I can see their eyes and their beaks. I look at them for a while and then all at once I jump up, scream at them, throw my arms up and kick my wellingtons straight off my feet high into the tree.
The starlings leave for a while. When I sit down on my own, knowing that they will come back, I feel that I am not able and not willing to live like this. I will wait and help my father as much as I can but one day I will leave him. I cannot stay with him for his lifetime.
My dream changes and my father and myself are now grading apples. It is November and we are standing in my father's half-broken down barn (I broke down that barn in the last year of his life) and I am thinking whether I could rebuild it....
I wake up and the taste of gall is in my mouth and I can only visualise the dark space around me as if I was on the loft in the old house of my childhood. With the planks above and the big beam, the. window to my left and the opening to the stairs that should be closed with a trapdoor... I force myself to switch on the light and go downstairs and drink a cup of warm milk. Back in bed I pray, with difficulty, for myself and my father who is dead. And slowly hope is coming back to me:
My father and myself walk in the flowering cherry orchard. The ground underneath is as neat as a kitchen- garden and two doves rise and dive above the trees. It is evening and we are unafraid. My father says in our own dialect: "Everything is o.k. Wim; I know that you always did your best". My father talks with me and does not lean on me now. He asks me "How are your boys Wim, Conny and Henri? And how is Alie (Alie is my wife)? Will you be good to them?".
It is almost morning and I keep thinking how can my father have changed so much. In his last three months, when he suffered on his own he must have found the answer to loneliness.
"It is o.k. Wim' and though tears trickle warmly over my temples I see the two of us walking in the orchard where there is not a hill within hundreds of miles. But through the screen of blossoming branches and big reddish stems of old familiar cherry trees, there is a faint outline of mountains.
I left you father in your orchard and could not come back.
Please do not withhold me your blessing.

Recipe

Karmine Diced Pork (6 servings approx.)

1.5 - 3 lbs. diced leg or fillet of locally produced pork, well trimmed.
Flour, seasoned with salt, pepper, mustard powder and brown sugar.
Olive oil.
A small onion (optional).
600ml (1pt.) Karmine apple juice.
300ml (l/2 pt.) chicken stock.
Some whole-grain mustard.
Some cream.

Flavour the olive oil by frying the sliced onion and then disgarding the onion. Toss the pork in the seasoned flour and then brown it in the olive oil in small batches. Place in a flameproof casserole dish and cover with the apple juice and stock. Add about a tablespoon of whole- grain mustard and bring to the boil. Transfer to an oven pre-heated to 350'F (180OC) for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven, stir in some cream. Cheek the seasoning and add more mustard if desired. Return the casserole to the oven for ten minutes more.
Note: If the sauce is too thin, remove the pork and keep it warm while you put the casserole over a moderate heat and simmer until the sauce has reduced and thickened before returning the meat to the pan and serving.   

In the fruit garden

Strawberries
Now is a good time to plant strawberries. However, bear in mind that only a small crop (if any) will be harvested this summer, and that you are really now planting for a good crop in summer 2002. Whether you are using your own runners or getting them elsewhere (at the garden centre for instance), remember that to avoid root diseases, plant into fresh ground which has not had strawberries in it for at least ten years.
On your established plants, take some time to remove all the dead leaves from last season as these harbour grey mould disease (Botrytis). The more thoroughly this is done the less disease you will have on your fruits.

Raspberries
Ensure that your raspberry canes are well secured to their supports. Now that the buds are opening, they will easily be blown by the wind, and any waving about can promote root diseases. As raspberries cannot tolerate wet soil, make sure that the ground is well drained and if necessary create a ridge by placing some earth around the base of the canes. This will allow higher rooting away front the soil underneath. Any weeds still present should also be removed.

Apples
Your apples are now breaking bud. Ensure that all leaf litter has been removed, as this is a primary source of disease infection. If you have varieties that have been affected by black spot (apple scab) in the past, then a few sprays of fungicide between now and petal fall would be useful. Useful chemicals include captan, dithane and systhane, or if you have an organic garden try sulphur. Bear in mind that there should be no need to apply any chemicals unless the weather is wet. If you see greenfly on your trees their ignore these. Most species soon migrate elsewhere.


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