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It has been a very good autumn for fruit, and we are very happy with our apple crop. So too are many of you, judging by the number of people who contacted us asking what to do with their apples, or how to make cider. If you have already made some, now might be a good time to have a glass, and relax while reading our latest newsletter.
 As is clear after a summer like this, apples are quite dependent on weather, and good weather at certain times can make a big difference when it comes to harvest.
If you remember back to the early summer, you may recollect that the fine weather came early, and that May and early June were good, and that once the school holidays arrived, the weather took a turn for the worse (for a while).
Now while this may not have suited those getting school holidays, it suited apples very well. There are at least two reasons for this.
Firstly, apples grow from the base of the blossom, and in fact the apple itself is just a swollen flower part. As it happens, this swelling happens in two stages. Firstly, the cells divide. So one cell becomes two, and two become four, and four become eight, and on to sixteen and so on. This happens during the first six weeks after flowering. And, this process is temperature-dependent. So the warmer it is (like this year), the more quickly the cells divide, and so there are more cells produced in this six week period.
After this period of cell division, the cells expand, getting bigger and bigger as they fill with juice during the rest of the season. But if there are more cells there to expand, the ultimate size of the apple will be larger. And this is part of the reason why people have found such good crops of nicely-sized apples in their gardens this year.
The other reason that the weather has suited apples this year, is again associated with the good weather in the early summer. Apple scab is a nasty disease affecting apples. Each year it arrives from spores on dead and decaying leaves under the tree, and infects new leaves and fruits. If it is bad, the tree can drop many leaves, and will not be able to produce a good crop of apples. However, to infect, apple scab needs wet weather in early summer, and this year the weather did not suit it. And so the trees were spared having to cope with this disease, and in turn they had good healthy leaves that could grow good apples.
So, all through the autumn, and even still, as you drive through the countryside, you may still see very good apples, even on abandoned old trees. For me it’s a reminder of the effect of weather on apples, and what a nice start we had to the summer.
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