The Apple Club Newsletter, Winter 2007, Page 1

Apologies for the absence of newsletters over the summer and autumn. Getting the time to put them together can be difficult. In any case, we hope that you enjoy this edition. May we also wish you health and happiness this Christmas, well in advance.

Christmas lights

As you may remember, each Christmas for the past twenty years, we placed Christmas lights on the large pine tree located at our entrance. Because of the size of the tree, this required about 200 bulbs, each of 20 watts. The total power loading was about 4kW per hour.
Or to put it in another way, the power we used for the outdoor Christmas lights each year would be enough to run our electric forklift for about 40 days. While this is not huge, it is one of the few load factors that we feel is unnecessary to the workings of our farm.
While our farm is a net absorber of CO2, removing more greenhouse gases from the air than it emits, we still feel that we need to do better. Therefore, on environmental grounds, we have decided not to light our pine tree using these lights this year. We do plan to investigate getting some low energy LED lights as replacements, but they will not be here in time for this year. We hope that you will enjoy your visit to our farm over Christmas nonetheless.

An interesting contact

I recently received an email from one Terry Yorke, from near Sidmouth in Devon. He was tracking down the Woolbrook Pippin apple, of which we have an example in our heritage varieties’ collection. He informed me that the Woolbrook Pippin originated from close to Sidmouth, where it was bred in 1903 by JH Stevens & Son, who had a nursery there. As a Cox’s Orange Pippin seedling it has good taste, and was given an award of merit by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1929.
In Sidmouth, they are hoping to revive the apple in a small way, to make its heritage part of the attraction of the village. I was glad to be able to provide Terry with a photograph of the two apples remaining on the tree (I had eaten the rest), and was also happy to learn more about this interesting apple.

Another interesting contact

Email is an amazing device. Another recent contact I received was from a citizen of Iran; a Mr. Radmehr. He has a one hectare farm, which he plans to grow apples on, and he was seeking advice on how apples are grown in this part of the World. He provided me with a link to a webpage, and there I could see a satellite image of his farm, which is situated in the mountains of Iran, about 1200 metres above sea level (higher than the top of Ireland’s highest mountain, Carrauntouhill).
Growing apples in Iran is only possible in the mountains, as the lowlands are too hot, and Mr. Radmehr informed me that in that part of Iran, quite a lot of apples are grown on traditional large trees.
Indeed from the satellite photograph, it was possible to see trees, as well as roads, houses, farm buildings and so on.
I hope to stay in touch with Mr. Radmehr, to give him as much help as I can, and I am sure that I can learn a thing or two in the process of our discussions too. Up to that email, I did not even know that quite a lot of apples are grown in Iran.

Apple juice with added calcium:

We have had a wonderful response to our new apple juice with calcium. The number of people who now come to get it is quite remarkable. People who are coming in tell me that their children don’t drink enough milk, or are lactose intolerant, and say this is a great option. And of course we also have people who drink it to reduce the risk of osteoporosis.

In our farm shop:

We have a range of apples for sale at the moment. For eating we have Karmijn de Sonnaville, Wellant, Jonagored and Elstar. Karmijn de Sonnaville is described by Morgan and Richards in their book of apples as intensely flavoured, rich, aromatic, and with masses of sugars and acidity; very good. I would consider Wellant to be similar. Jonagored apples have been taking the USA by storm for a while, and Elstar are Germany’s most popular eating variety. So what a selection that is.
For cooking we have some wonderful Bramleys; crisp and sharp like the day they were picked.
And of course, we also have our range of juices, described in the latest Bridgestone guide as outstanding concoctions.

Newsletter Winter 2007		page 1 of 4