The Apple Club Newsletter

Auutumn 2001

Welcome to the fourth issue of our apple club newsletter. We hope that you enjoy it.

The fruit we grow

One of our September apples is an old variety called James Grieve. It gets its name from its breeder, James Grieve who raised the apple from a seed he took from a Cox's Orange Pippin apple in Edinburgh some time before 1893. This is a savoury, juicy apple with strong acidity at first. This then mellows as the fruit matures during September, but the flesh softens soon thereafter. The result of these parallel changes is that the fruit is excellent for only a short time, being sweet, mildly acid and still firm for only a few days. When it is picked early, James Grieve makes a sweet and delicate stewed apple, but this is an uncommon dessert nowadays. There was a time when James Grieve apples were grown all over Europe and were delivered to the city markets via steam-train or horse-and-cart, but because they bruised easily they had to be carefully packed in laundry-type wicker baskets filled with straw.
Unfortunately the fruit cannot sustain modern supermarket handling, and so they are now only grown in gardens and for direct sale to consumers. Nonetheless, James Grieve is a very good apple because it produces fruit every year, is somewhat disease-resistant, and a very good pollinating variety for other apples. It is also a very good apple for us at The Apple Farm, because it makes an excellent juice.
Another variety which we grow for both fresh consumption and juice-making is Alkmene. This is of more recent origin, having been raised in the 1930 s in Germany. This apple is related to James Grieve, having Cox s Orange Pippin as one parent and Duchess of Oldenburg as the other.
Interestingly, it was not until forty years after it was bred that it was finally released for growers to try in 1972. We planted our first Alkmene in 1984, and our most recent ones in 1999. Right from the beginning its been a very popular apple, tasting like a Cox, but easier to grow in our wet summer climate. It s flavour has been described as rich and aromatic and the texture as crisp and juicy. If you would like to try this fruit, you can get it from early October onwards.

Worms in our strawberries

Have you ever heard of a nematode? It's a tiny worm which is so small that many hundred could fit on a pinhead. A few weeks ago we were placing these worms on our strawberry field. The reason we re doing this is that there s a common garden and strawberry pest called the Vine Weevil about. The mother Weevil is about the size and shape of a ladybird, but black in colour. She lays her eggs in the soil, around the roots of strawberries or other shrubs she likes. The eggs hatch, and the young weevils eat the roots until the plant is close to death. Luckily, there is a nematode which likes nothing better than eating vine weevils. Of course the nematode is tiny and the weevil large, so it takes many nematodes to eat one weevil. And so we have to get many nematodes.
These can be purchased from specialists who are experts in raising them. A small bottle will contain many millions of nematodes, and it takes many bottles to cover our field. We simply mix the nematodes into water, and pour the water onto the plants, so that the nematodes get washed down to the roots where the weevils are. Nematodes don t like the cold, and so it's when the soil is at its warmest, in late July and early August that this job is done.
Since we've started using nematodes we haven't seen many weevils on our farm. The cures provided by nature itself are often the best.

New at the farm

We now have something new for you to try at our farm. It s strawberry jam, and we think that it s excellent. Because we had a very heavy crop of strawberries during the summer, and were not quite sure what to do with all of them, we decided to try freezing some. This worked very well, and so we are now making jam from our frozen strawberries. Pots are available in our farm shop, or if you would prefer to make it using your own recipe, we also have frozen strawberries available in bags of about four lbs. at 1.00 per lb.
We also hope to have some plum jam available in the near future.

Recipe for Apple Upside-Down Cake

750g / 28 ozs. apples
2 tablespoons lemon juice
225g / 8 ozs. granulated sugar
125g / 4 ozs. plain flour
A pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
The yolks of two eggs
25g / 1oz. melted butter
4 tablespoons of milk

Meringue:
2 egg whites
4 tablespoons of caster sugar

Grease an 8" pie plate and cover the bottom with peeled, thinly sliced apples. Sprinkle with 125g/4 ozs. sugar and lemon juice.
Sieve the flour into a bowl with the rest of the sugar, baking powder and salt. Beat the egg yolks with the milk and add to the flour with the melted butter. Beat quickly until blended. Cover the apples with the latter mixture and bake in a pre-heated hot oven at 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) for 45 minutes.

To serve:
Beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold in four tablespoons of caster sugar.
Reverse the cake onto a dish and cover with the meringue. Bake at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) for 15 minutes.

In the fruit garden

Raspberries
 Right now there should be plenty of new raspberry canes in your plot. You should thin these out to leave the stronger and healthier looking ones; about ten per linear metre is plenty. Leave the old canes in situ for another while, as the plant can take back nutrients from these right up to leaf fall. Remove any weeds also; there could be quite a few after this wet spell.

Strawberries
Strawberry plants will produce their new runners at this time of year. Once they have rooted they can be trans-planted to a new plot. Remember not to put them in ground which has had any strawberries in the past ten years, as soil diseases can linger for a long time.
If your plants are young, and you are not planning a new plot for this year, then space in the runners into any gaps in the existing row, and remove any excess. If the leaves of the old plants are very extensive these can be trimmed back with a strimmer or hedge clippers. Remove all the old leaves and burn them as they harbour diseases like grey mould and mildew.

Apples
Your apple trees should be looking well by now. It s been a good year for fruit. You ll know that they re ready when the ground colour begins to turn from green to yellow (this even happens with red apples). Another good indication is when you see the first few on the ground. Harvest early types before they get too ripe or they may attract too many wasps. Later maturing fruits should not be affected. If birds begin to attack you may need to consider some netting. If fruits are a little damaged you could try removing the damaged bits and making some apple juice. Many kitchen mixers have juicing attachments.
Enjoy the harvest.

Bird life on The Apple Farm

by Willem Traas

Sparrows: When I was a child I could hear them when I was in bed. They nested under the roof-tiles above me and dust fell through the roof on me and my brothers.
Crows: To me they look like ladies and gentlemen formally dressed. But they often make a lot of noise.
Pigeons: I don t want too many of them around and rather see them eating cabbages in somebody else s garden.
Doves: They remind me to keep peace with everybody as much as I can.
Blackbirds: They sing a lot and eat fruit and worms.
Swallows: I am very happy when they arrive in the spring. Today I see them sitting on the ESB line. I will be very sad when they leave. Where are they going I wonder?
Thrushes: Their colour is speckled brown and grey and they sing even better than blackbirds.
Nightingale: Famous for their singing; only once did I hear and see one on our camping.
Cuckoo: In the spring they call their own name and do a bad thing. What is it?
Wren: The smallest bird on the farm. It keeps its little tail up and has a round house with a small hole in it.
Finches: They live in various colours on The Apple Farm. The bullfinch eats the buds in the trees. Some people catch them in a cage with a calling bird in it. But where do they get the calling bird?
Starlings: They are bold birds eating lots of fruit.
Robin Redbreast: They keep me company in the winter when I am pruning the apple trees.
Pheasant: The biggest bird on the farm. The daddy pheasant has many wives.
Snipe: In the Autumn they fly over from the continent. My friend Roger from France liked to eat them.
In the air over the farm I sometimes see swans from Barne lake and geese from Scandinavia. I also see ducks which escape from Martin Moloney s farm in Poulmucka and seagulls from Dungarvan. When I am ploughing they land and eat the worms in the furrows.
I am trying to think of other birds now but I am not an expert. When I meet my friend Dan Hogan from Tipperary who worked with us for a long time I will ask him. He knows almost everything about them.
Next time I will write about the four-footed animals on The Apple Farm.


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