Taste the Difference

The visual appearance of many of the apples, especially the dessert varieties. Pock-marks, lumps, bumps, brown spots, warts; not what you would see on a supermarket shelf! The flesh of all these apples though was spotless, and the taste divine (poetic licence!). The Worcester Permain and the majority of the Egremont Russet managed to avoid these blemishes. So to did the vast majority of the culinary varieties, many of which have been our star turns this year. “In no particular order” I would like to mention Arthur Turner, Lord Derby, Bramley’s Seedling, Carlisle Codlin, Keswick          Spotless fleshwas produced on most apples Codlin and last, but not least, Yorkshire Aromatic (YA) – the aficionados favourite. Selfishly one of the three YA trees decided to have a “rest” this year, resulting in fewer apples than  last year.                                    

 

Despite my fears at the end of last year we were not overwhelmed with the harvest. Apparently the cold spring resulted in only moderate pollination due to reduced insect movement. This resulted in the Gorse Hill orchard only producing about the same amount of fruit as last year despite the fact we had twice as many trees fruiting as in 2009. There were also a couple of other varieties, besides the YA, that took a “rest” – we must have worked them too hard last year! 

    What are the chances of this happening?               

 

Dennis Walton