This teacher loves apples! (Apples)

Member Name: jammaker49

Product:	Apples
Date:	16/03/03 (536 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Healthy, good crop relative to size of bush

Disadvantages: Acid needs cleaning from teeth!

Many of you who were Dooyooing last year will have read my ops on various fruits. I grow many varieties of fruit organically, as we have 2 allotments just at the back of our garden, and to date we have 5 different varieties of apple bushes (trees grafted onto dwarf root stock to produce smaller plants than great orchard apple trees.) As well as giving advice and stuff about how to grow apples etc, I thought I would add a bit more detail to this op, so sit back and take a tour round the life and history of apples.

DIARY OF AN APPLE TREE

SPRING

The year can be thought of as a cycle. We will start the year in the orchard with Spring, the season of rebirth. When Spring arrives it seems as though dozens of tasks need to be done at once to get ready for the growing season. Pruning which has been going on all winter needs to be finished.

We depend upon bees to carry pollen from one flower to the next so that apples will develop. With most varieties pollen must come from a different variety in order to get a good fruit set. If you plant a seed from a McIntosh apple, it will not produce a McIntosh tree because the pollen that fertilized the flower was probably not from a McIntosh flower. . In addition to an adequate number of bees, good pollination weather is necessary to have a good fruit set. The honeybee is particular, and does not like to fly if the temperature is below 60 degrees or if it is very windy. Cold, rainy, or windy weather has kept many a good bloom from living up to its potential to produce a good crop.

Each bud opens to reveal a flower cluster of five blossoms. There is one large central blossom called the king, with four somewhat smaller ones around it. The king will make a larger apple than the other blossoms. Apples should be spaced every four or five inches along a branch. It is more desirable to have the strength of the tree go into growing a moderate amount of large apples than a large amount of small apples

. A bushel of large apples may be worth twice what a bushel of small apples is worth, so that it matters a lot that too good a fruit set not be allowed to remain.

Thinning is the solution. The difficult part of this process is the decision concerning how much to thin. There will be a natural drop of immature apples around June time anyway, so if you thin too much, you could end up with hardly any crop at all. We tend to pick out the very smallest apples around the end of May (it coincides with half term holidays from school!) and then let nature do the rest!

SUMMER

A summer prune can be useful if the branches have become close together. This lets in the light, which in turn, sets the colour on apple skins to a certain extent.

In late July and August some varieties of apples ripen and are ready to harvest. The early varieties are often very tasty but are not good long-term keepers so they are picked to be eaten almost at once.

AUTUMN (Harvest time)

This starts in late August or early September. The earliest picked apples can be picked slightly unripened, and stored in a cool, dark place to slow down the ripening process, and give you apples which will still be more than edible 3 months after picking. Those picked later will be riper, and therefore will not have as long a “shelf life”.

After harvesting the fruit, there is still work to be done. Tree limbs broken by too heavy a fruit load need to be sawn off. Excess grass at the base of trees needs to be removed to prevent too much cover for rodents. Some of these creatures will gnaw the bark from the bottoms of trees, and by removing any grass cover, you remove their hiding places.

Old wood will need to be pruned out, and any branches growing where you don’t want them to grow can be removed.

WINTER

The major job done in the winter and early spring is pruning. Major cuts are made when the trees are dormant.
Ever
y tree should be pruned every year. Trees are pruned to renew fruiting wood, to let light into as much of the tree as possible, to encourage moderate vigour, and to maintain the tree at a convenient height and shape.

We also tie insect strips around the trunks of our trees in winter to discourage the larvae of various insects from climbing the limbs when they hatch in spring.

VARIETIES

There are numerous varieties of apple plants which can be grown in this country, so I will limit this to the ones I actually grow.

1) Gala. It is heart-shaped with distinctive yellow-orange skin with red striping. Gala is just the right size for snacking and is great in salads, good for baking and very good in applesauce. Our tree produces an abundance of relatively small fruits. Unlike many desert apples, Galas will mush down quite nicely if stewed, so I tend to freeze quite a lot of mine.

2) Cox’s Orange Pippin. The fruit is of medium size or above medium, red and yellow. When highly coloured it is attractive, with the red predominant. The tree is a moderate grower and productive. It is well adapted for growing on dwarf stock. It is a desirable variety for the home orchard. This is my favourite flavoured apple, so I made sure we had one of these when we bought our stock! It is a late fruit, and can be harvested well into November.

3) Gloucester. This is a red skinned, white-fleshed apple, quite firm in texture. It has a slightly elongated shape, and the apples are quite tart in flavour. It is a medium term apple, being ripe in late September, early October.

4) Jonagold. This is a blend of Jonathan and Golden Delicious apples, offering a unique tangy-sweet flavour with firm flesh. Jonagold is excellent both for eating fresh and for cooking.

5) Bramley. The ultimate in cooking apples. Large, round, green hard apples, excellent for stewing, baking, in fact anywhere a cooked apple is needed. S
o far we h
ave only picked 3 of this sort, as we only planted the tree 2 seasons ago!

HISTORY AND LEGENDS CONNECTED WITH APPLES

The Apple is a fruit of the temperate zones and only reaches perfection in their cooler regions. It is a fruit of long descent and in the Swiss lake dwellings, small apples have been found, completely charred but still showing the seed-valves and the grain of the flesh. It exists in its wild state in most countries of Europe and also in the region of the Caucasus: in Norway, it is found in the lowlands as far north as Drontheim.

Apples of some sort were abundant before the Norman Conquest and were probably introduced into Britain by the Romans. Twenty-two varieties were mentioned by Pliny: there are now about 2,000 kinds cultivated. In the Old Saxon manuscripts there are numerous mentions of apples and cider.

Cider Apples may be considered as a step in development from the Wild Apple to the Dessert Apple. Formerly every farmhouse made its cider. The apples every autumn were tipped in heaps on the straw-strewn floor of the pound house, a building of cob, covered with thatch, in which stood the pounder and the press and vats and all hands were busy for days preparing the golden beverage. This was the yearly process - still carried out on many farms of the west of England, though cider-making is becoming more and more a product of the factories.

In Shakespeare's time, apples when served at dessert were usually accompanied by caraway, as we may read in Henry IV, where Shallow invites Falstaff to 'a pippin and a dish of caraway,' In a still earlier Booke of Nurture, it is directed 'After mete pepyns, caraway in comfyts.' The custom of serving roast apples with a little saucerful of Carraways is still kept up at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at some of the old-fashioned London Livery dinners, just as in Shakespeare's days.

The chief dietetic value of apples lies i
n the malic and
tartaric acids. These acids are of signal benefit to persons of sedentary habits, who are liable to liver derangements, and they neutralize the acid products of gout and indigestion. 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away' is a respectable old rhyme that has some reason in it.

The acids of the Apple not only make the fruit itself digestible, but even make it helpful in digesting other foods. Popular instinct long ago led to the association of apple sauce with such rich foods as pork and goose, and the old English fancy for eating apple pie with cheese, an obsolete taste, nowadays, is another example of instinctive inclination, which science has approved

The sugar of a sweet apple, like most fruit sugars, is practically a predigested food, and is soon ready to pass into the blood to provide energy and warmth for the body. A ripe raw apple is one of the easiest vegetable substances for the stomach to deal with, the whole process of its digestion being completed in eighty-five minutes.

It is stated on medical authority that in countries where unsweetened cider is used as a common beverage, stone or calculus is unknown, and a series of inquiries made of doctors in Normandy, where cider is the principal drink, brought to light the fact that not a single case of stone had been met with during forty years.

Ripe, juicy apples eaten at bedtime every night will cure some of the worst forms of constipation. Sour apples are the best for this purpose. Some cases of sleeplessness have been cured in this manner. People much inclined to biliousness will find this practice very valuable. In some cases stewed apples will agree perfectly well, while raw ones prove disagreeable. There is a very old saying:

'To eat an apple going to bed
Will make the doctor beg his bread.'

The Apple will also act as an excellent dentifrice, being a food that is not only cleansing to the teeth on account of i
ts juices, but just
hard enough to mechanically push back the gums so that the borders are cleared of deposits.

ADAM'S APPLE is a variety of the Lime (Citrus limetta). Superstition relates that a piece of the forbidden apple stuck in Adam's throat, and his descendants ever after had the lump in the front of the neck which is so named.

APPLE FACTS

·7500 varieties of apples are grown throughout the world.
·Apples are fat, sodium, and cholesterol free.
·A medium apple is about 80 calories.
·The science of apple growing is called pomology.
·Apples were the favourite fruit of ancient Greeks and Romans.
·Apples are a member of the rose family.
·25 percent of an apple's volume is air. That is why they float.
·Apples have 5 seeds. There are five seed pockets, each with a seed, in an apple.
·It takes about 36 apples to create one gallon of apple cider.
·Archaeologists have found evidence that humans have been enjoying apples since lat least 6500 B.C.
·It takes the energy from 50 leaves to produce one apple.
·Charred apples have been found in prehistoric dwellings in Switzerland.
·The largest apple picked weighed three pounds.

RECIPES

I’m not going to do recipes like apple pie and crumble. We all know how to do those (nip down the local supermarket of course! Instead, I have picked out a few more unusual recipes, including drinks.

1) The Frosty Apple

Ingredients.
1 pint vanilla ice cream
1 quart naturally sweet apple cider
4-6 scoops vanilla ice cream (optional)
Freshly ground nutmeg

Method:
Let a pint of vanilla ice cream soften at room temperature or microwave for 20 seconds. Put ice cream and cider into a blender or food processor and blend until frothy and well mixed. Stir in nutmeg. Pour into tall glasses and top with a scoop of ice cream, if desired. Sprinkle nutmeg on top. Yield 6 one-cup servings.


2) Apple Pancakes with Sp
icy Yogurt and Cider Syrup

Ingredients
6 cups apple cider
1 cup plain yoghurt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
6 tablespoons chunky applesauce
2 cup wholewheat pancake mix
2 cup skim milk
2 egg, slightly beaten (or 1 whole egg plus one egg white)
6 tablespoons applesauce
Canola oil
Extra cinnamon for Garnish

Method

Start by making the syrup; pour the cider in a pot that is large enough to be no more than half filled. Place the pan over high heat, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium, very slow boil, and cook for about 30 minutes. Cook until the cider is reduced to one cup. Set aside. (Syrup can be made in advance. Keeps for about one week in the refrigerator. Warm or bring to room temperature before serving.)

Next, in a small bowl, combine yoghurt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and 6 tablespoons applesauce. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

In a large bowl, combine milk, eggs, and 6 tablespoons applesauce. Stir in pancake mix. Mix well enough to moisten, do not over mix. If the batter is too thick add a little water.

Heat a large non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat. When skillet is hot, lightly grease.

Add batter, making medium pancakes, about 1/2 cup batter per pancake. Cook until tiny bubbles form on top, peek under the edge, turn when pancake is golden brown and continue to cook. Place on a platter and keep pancakes and 4 serving plates warm in a heated oven.


To serve; fan (slightly overlap) 5 pancakes on a warm plate. Drizzle Cider Syrup over the pancakes (about 1/2 cup) and top with a dollop of spiced Yoghurt, garnish with an additional sprinkle of cinnamon.

Yield 4 servings.

3) Apple Chicken Salad

Ingredients
1/2 cup fat-free yoghurt
1/4 cup orange juice
1/2 cup apple jelly, melted
1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
3 cups coo
ked chicken, diced
2 cups
finely sliced celery
3 apples, unpeeled and diced
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Method
In a large bowl, mix yoghurt, orange juice, melted apple jelly and lemon juice. Add chicken, celery and apples. Toss gently to coat all pieces. Season with salt and chill until ready to serve. Sprinkle with pecans and serve on a bed of romaine lettuce. Yield 8 3/4 cup servings.

IN CONCLUSION

There is obviously a lot more to apples than simply a healthy addition to junior’s lunchbox! I hope I have given you some insight into the world of apples. Contrary to popular opinion, the apple was NOT the fruit, which Eve picked from the tree in the Garden of Eden. In the Bible it is simply referred to as “the forbidden fruit”. In this day and age, with refrigeration and transportation, apples are certainly not forbidden at any time of the year.

Long live the apple!

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