Tag: Autumn

Autumn Apples

Blogs FOOD & DRINKS

Autumn apples are arriving.

Our two small apple trees planted near each other  in separate pots which we keep in our back garden near the kitchen window, are again bearing fruits as they have done every year since we got them quite cheaply from a local garden centre. We recommend that if you are buying small apple trees to be planted in pots, get at least two and locate the potted trees near each other.  This is to encouraged polination which would result to fruiting.

Autumn Apples

We have found that alternatively each year, one of the trees will normally yield 30 + apples, whilst the other one will struggle with only a few, typically half a dozen?

This could be down to cross pollination by bees, wasps etc., hence having at least two trees, one should always bear a lot of apples annually.

gala apple from our tree

gala apples from our tree and above you can see a small garden spider web weaved around the branches. 

nearly ripe apples on our tree small potted apple tree

Our two potted apple trees, note the furthest tree has only one lonely apple on it’s branch this year.

Our apples are of the Gala variety.

Normally  in the UK,  October is generally harvest time, apples included. Apple trees in pots need regularly watering in high summer when there is no rain.  It is wonderful to watch an apple develop and grow from early summer to autumn.   To see if an apple is ripe and ready to pick just before it falls to the ground and could get spoiled, hold the apple in your hand and pull/tug  it very lightly and it will detached itself easily from the small  branch holding it without much effort.

Our cute & mischievous terrier is always about to pounce upon fallen apples and even those lower ones still attached to the trees 😉

Sometimes we spray the growing apples with soapy water (a very ecological way) to keep off bugs and not make the apple inedible.

The apples are ready for traditional game ‘apple bobbing’ on Halloween.  🙂

There is a superstition regarding a fun game called bobbing for apples.  It involves catching one of the floating apples in a big tub of water.  Anyway, it is said that the bigger the apple you get, the greater the fortune that would befall you.  Nice!

…….

Did you know?

Gala is Great Britain’s favourite apple!  This apple originated in New Zealand.

The gala was named after the Queen (QEII) following her visit to New Zealand.

Apples originally came from the Middle East more than 4,000 years ago.

Apples are high in fibre.

The apples on the above top of the trees ripen first.

An apple is ready to be harvested when you hold it, give it a gentle thug and come away from the tree.

How to keep apples?

Keep them in the fridge or some cold dark place, this way they will stay fresher longer.

Ode To Autumn – John Keats

Uncategorized

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
– Albert Camus

Today is the official first day of autumn or what the Americans from across the pond would call fall.

The verdant and vibrant leaves will soon to turn into various shades from green into  red, pinkish, yellow, golden, brown, etc and then they start to fall and create a sea of beautiful red and golden carpet.

Autumn Leaves by PH Morton

ODE TO AUTUMN
John Keats

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Gathering Leaves – Robert Frost

Global Dictionary

Poem

 

It is autumn, sooner or later the leaves will turn all shades of yellow, red, orange and brown and then they will start to fall.

Did you know that Fall, as in Autumn, comes from an old English Feallen meaning the falling of the leaves. American and Canadian use this term for one of the four seasons whilst the Brits have semi-abandoned Fall for the French Autompne and Latin Autumnus

I love the leaves when they are newly fallen, they create such a lovely colours underfoot. But given a few days, they would turn dirty brown and break up and get slushy in the rain. Raking them in is such a chore too. 🙁

9 September

Autumn Leaves, Photo by PH Morton

Gathering Leaves

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?

Robert Frost