Time to store my trusty apple press

All the apples are now off the trees and the apple press has done its work for the year.
It's cleaned up and oiled ready for storage. I have been very lucky that St Luke's school has been so kind to let me have a little space for the table, press and chopper so that hopefully next year we can use it for apple juice making with the children.

More walnuts on Akeman Street

After cycling back from Aldi, I noticed an amazing walnut tree shedding its nuts on to the road.
I went back with Silvia and the children and had a lovely time. Not very large but delicious.

So lovely to meet Carrie

Whilst waiting for my husband at Christ Pieces I noticed an amazing walnut tree.
the fruit was dropping onto the street so decided to contact the owner to find out if I could pick for them.
They were delightful and happy to let me return the next day armed with pickers and my son, Michael.
Within the hours we returned with a large carrier bag full of the delicious fruit.
They are now drying out in the loft, had already had a few in our salad. Beautiful!

A beautiful orchard in one of our local colleges

It was so good to speak with Daren and Ian the gardener, who let me come with various groups to pick the abundance of apples in their orchard.

There were almost too many specimen, luckily enough, I had an SOS from Simon who wanted to have apples from Brain Wave a  charity he works for and who always make apple juice, this time they did not have enough apples so was pleased to help them in the mean time.

One of the varieties we found out later was D'Arcy Spice

Membrillo made with quinces from East Hertford Street

Together with Tom, Silvia and the girls we set off to pick the St John's apples and the quinces from the tree that were next to it. We picked enough to hand out crates of these lovely eating apples. The quinces I kept for my self to try out how to make quince jelly and membrillo