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Issue
3 Volume 2 Autumn 2001
Welcome to the fourth issue of our apple club newsletter. We hope
that you enjoy it.
The
fruit we grow
One
of our September apples is an old variety called James Grieve. It
gets its name from its breeder, James Grieve who raised the apple
from a seed he took from a Coxıs Orange Pippin apple in Edinburgh
some time before 1893. This is a savoury, juicy apple with strong
acidity at first. This then mellows as the fruit matures during
September, but the flesh softens soon thereafter. The result of
these parallel changes is that the fruit is excellent for only a
short time, being sweet, mildly acid and still firm for only a few
days. When it is picked early, James Grieve makes a sweet and
delicate stewed apple, but this is an uncommon dessert nowadays.
There was a time when James Grieve apples were grown all over
Europe and were delivered to the city markets via steam-train or
horse-and-cart, but because they bruised easily they had to be
carefully packed in laundry-type wicker baskets filled with straw.
Unfortunately the fruit cannot sustain modern supermarket
handling, and so they are now only grown in gardens and for direct
sale to consumers. Nonetheless, James Grieve is a very good apple
because it produces fruit every year, is somewhat
disease-resistant, and a very good pollinating variety for other
apples. It is also a very good apple for us at The Apple Farm,
because it makes an excellent juice.
Another variety which we grow for both fresh consumption and
juice-making is Alkmene. This is of more recent origin, having
been raised in the 1930ıs in Germany. This apple is related to
James Grieve, having Coxıs Orange Pippin as one parent and
Duchess of Oldenburg as the other.
Interestingly, it was not until forty years after it was bred that
it was finally released for growers to try in 1972. We planted our
first Alkmene in 1984, and our most recent ones in 1999. Right
from the beginning its been a very popular apple, tasting like a
Cox, but easier to grow in our wet summer climate. Itıs flavour
has been described as rich and aromatic and the texture as crisp
and juicy. If you would like to try this fruit, you can get it
from early October onwards.
Worms in our strawberries
Have you ever heard of a nematode? Itıs a tiny worm which is so
small that many hundred could fit on a pinhead. A few weeks ago we
were placing these worms on our strawberry field. The reason
weıre doing this is that thereıs a common garden and strawberry
pest called the Vine Weevil about. The mother Weevil is about the
size and shape of a ladybird, but black in colour. She lays her
eggs in the soil, around the roots of strawberries or other shrubs
she likes. The eggs hatch, and the young weevils eat the roots
until the plant is close to death. Luckily, there is a nematode
which likes nothing better than eating vine weevils. Of course the
nematode is tiny and the weevil large, so it takes many nematodes
to eat one weevil. And so we have to get many nematodes.
These can be purchased from specialists who are experts in raising
them. A small bottle will contain many millions of nematodes, and
it takes many bottles to cover our field. We simply mix the
nematodes into water, and pour the water onto the plants, so that
the nematodes get washed down to the roots where the weevils are.
Nematodes donıt like the cold, and so itıs when the soil is at
its warmest, in late July and early August that this job is done.
Since weıve started using nematodes we havenıt seen many weevils
on our
farm. The cures provided by nature itself are often the best.
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