Pump up the bramley - sky lanterns, fire and elderflower champagne

Last weekend I had a party in the 1920s orchard at Charingworth. I invited the people I work with in the market garden and a few other friends and orchard helpers. Three of the guests were cider-makers so we were well supplied with cider and perry, and also got to try out my elderflower champagne for the first time. 'Too yeasty' is often the verdict with this kind of venture, but actually it was really good. Young, fresh, very fizzy and refreshing. A bit like me I hear you say? Ah gags!



A cheeky tribe of scrumpers, armed and dangerous! It takes some skill to get your face that muddy.

Orchards are great for camping as they never get too windy. I was pitched a little close to my hive of sleeping bees though.



It was the first time I had tried this back-to-nature minimalist fire pit design for the BBQ. It worked really well, and I would recommend aligning it with the direction of the prevailing wind to maximise air-flow. We cooked Cumberland sausages, burgers, and spicy 'Hungarian Hot Wax' peppers stuffed with coconut rice. Use British charcoal if you can - it burns so much better and the woodland management involved in producing it benefits many species. I like to think Ray Mears would have loved it, although someone brought tin foil and I know he hates that.


Everyone knows that there is nothing quite as entrancing as fire, and when you combine it with the gaping mouth of a drunken man it becomes a special pleasure.


No ultra-hip orchard knees-up would be complete without a sprinkling of sky lanterns (or should that be a twinkling?). I'm sure the NFU would have something to say about that, but apparently the wheat is not ripe enough to burn yet and life is too short anyway. Our ones didn't have any metal wire in them making them 100% biodegradable and safe for cows etc.

Pruning party 2010

It was a question we had all been asking ourselves: what can a dozen people armed with saws do to an old orchard in a day? Will the outcome be disastrous? Can the ecological and horticultural aims be kept in balance? Will the cider kill the work ethic? Perhaps more than anything we were blessed by the weather on a day fine enough to inspire even the most dendrophobic Londoner into considering all those water shoots and congested crowns.


Teaching people about pruning is difficult, and especially so with the unusual situation at Charingworth. Here Bramley apple trees on vigorous rootstocks have been commercially managed for over 70 years. We are now attempting to ease them into a less intensive management regime, whilst at the same time preserving all the valuable types of habitat that orchards can accumulate over time.


I started my friends off on a couple of trees I had already half-pruned. This eased them into the basics of dealing with the water shoots without too many confusing or important decisions to make.


The basic message was: clear the crown and lower branches from water shoots and then thin the majority of the rest, choosing a few well positioned shoots to take the vigour. Remove anything crossing or pointing back in. Easy, breezy, beautiful.


I was lucky to have Harry and Tommy back from the pruning weekend last year. It looks like Harry is giving some advice to Luca in this photo - knowledge sharing for fruit bearing!




We brought a load of well seasoned wood into the orchard to try and create a fire ferocious enough to consume the piles of sappy offcuts that have been created. I think the only workable solution will be to hire a mobile chipper for a day once the pruning is finished.


A "Blitzkrieg" campaign on tree 31.




I picked up twenty litres of medium sweet Prior's Tipple cider to keep the mood buoyant. Alongside hot Cumberland sausages with mustard and onion marmalade, this made for an idyllic lunch amongst the trees.








By the end of the day we had pruned five trees (shown here in pink). This was more than I had hoped for and it was so thrilling that everyone seemed to really get into it. This takes the total up to 27, which is over half way!

More importantly it allowed a few people to experience the beauty of old orchards first-hand. There is nothing quite like sitting in the arms of a pruned apple tree with a glass of cider to allow communion with, in James Russell's words, that "man-made Eden".

Cleeve Prior cider weekend

My good friend (and boss) Jez is the man behind Prior's Tipple, a cider that uses fruit from old orchards in the village of Cleeve Prior, Worcestershire (see 15/8/09 post). Each year he hosts a cider making weekend where friends from across the country get together to pick and process fruit, camp amongst the trees and drink cider. The old orchards of Cleeve Prior are being used, and because of this they are admired, maintained and play an important role in reconnecting people with the natural world. Old orchards that have a use stand a far better chance of surviving.


There are several orchards in the village, and on the Saturday thirty of us moved between about five different sites collecting fruit. Prior's Tipple is made from a 'geographical blend' of fruit and thus although there is no exact recipe, the same trees are harvested from each year ensuring that a broadly consistent mix of apples goes into the press. You don't want the juice to be too sweet since it is often the sourer flavours that provide levels of complexity in the cider.


We picked three tonnes of fruit from this orchard. It had some fairly ancient trees in it, including a couple of perry pears like the one in the foreground here. Interestingly this one had really sweet fruit whereas I expected all perry pears to be quite bitter to taste.


You can't really shake a big tree from the ground, but climbing fruit trees is often sketchy. Everyone was in quiet agreement about one thing though- knocking the fruit down is far more fun than picking it up again off the floor!


A beautiful apple that Jez calls the 'still life' apple. Not sure about the real variety but this shouldn't be impossible to find out considering how unusual it is.


Many hands making light work of a haul of fruit the weight of which almost became scary. That's about a tonne in the van there.


The business end of proceedings; apples are 1) washed, 2) roughly chopped, 3) scatted into pulp, 4) organised into 'cheeses' and 5) pressed. The juice is filtered and collected in large tanks to begin fermentation.


I was really impressed by the work of the Cleeve Prior Heritage Trust. They got the villagers to club together and raised thousands of pounds to buy land in the village to save it from development or misuse. This is a photo of the Cleeve Prior Community Orchard and Parish Ponds, a nature reserve with old plum and apple trees and several fantastic ponds. It is a wildlife haven, with unimproved grassland that apparently has fantastic wildflowers in the summer (including pyramidal orchids). The ponds are thankfully free of fish and gaps in the orchard have been replanted with cider apple trees that we harvested, a diversification that keeps the orchards productive.


In a cavity in one of the old plum trees I found the frass of the Noble Chafer (Gnorimus nobilis)! Unmistakable lozenge shaped droppings of a very rare beetle. (I think these orchards have already been fully surveyed so sadly no glory to be claimed for that spot.)


This was in another orchard, mainly plum again. Jez provided many of the maiden cider-apple trees that have been used to replant the gaps. There were also a few much older standard apple trees such as the one pictured. We saw a Little owl flying across the grass and there were huge ant hills along the fenced edge.



Oh apple tree, we'll wassail thee
And hoping thou wilt bear,
For the Lord does know where we may go
To be merry another year.

To grow well and to bear well,
And so merrily let us be,
Let every man lift up his glass
And a health to the old apple tree,
Brave boys, and a health to the old apple tree.

(Traditional English wassailing song.)