|
If you have found this page through a search engine,
you are welcome to the website of The Apple Farm in
Tipperary, Ireland. Feel free to browse the rest of our
site, starting at the Home Page.
In
the fruit garden: advice for winter.
Raspberries
All your raspberries should be dormant by now.
However, if ours are anything to go by there are probably still
some green leaves about. Now is the time to prune out old canes
and tie in the new growth that arose during the summer. When
removing old canes use a good secateurs and cut right back to
soil level leaving as small a stump as possible. You can remove
some new canes also so as to leave the healthiest ones spaced at
about 4' (10 cm) apart. Tie in these canes firmly to their
supports.
Strawberries
Strawberry plants
are now dormant. Little is now required unless you delayed with
some of the autumn treatments. If this is the case have a look
at the previous issue of this newsletter for suggestions.
Apples
Winter is pruning
time. There are a number of principles that you can consider
when pruning. Remove any suckers (shoots coming up from the
ground level). These will compete with your tree. Remove
branches hanging on the ground. Remove diseased branches or
diseased parts of branches. Try to get your tree into a
pyramidal (or Christmas tree) shape. Do not take off too many
branches - this will just encourage lots of new shoots next
year. Try to assess how many fruit buds you have - these are the
fat rounded buds. A 2 metre tall tree (6 feet tall) only needs
perhaps 100. If there is an abundance of fruit buds then prune
some off. If they seem scarce then preserve the branches on
which you see them. Good luck with the pruning.
Last
year's Winter garden advice
Recipe
Easy
Apple Cake
With
thanks to Margaret Glennon, Golden.
Ingredients:
1
lb (500g) cooking apples
6
oz (175g) self-raising flour
1
tsp baking powder
6
oz (175g) caster sugar
2
eggs
1/2
tsp almond essence
4
oz (125g) melted butter
Caster
sugar to sprinkle
Method:
Line
an 8" cake tin with greaseproof paper. Heat the oven to 18O°C
(35O°F)
or gas mark 4.
Peel,
core & slice apples and put into a bowl of water. Put the
flour and baking powder into a bowl with the caster sugar.
Beat
together the eggs & almond essence.
Stir
into the flour together with-the melted butter. Mix together
well.
Spread
half the mixture in the prepared cake tin.
Drain
& dry the apple slices & spread on top of cake
mixture.
Top
with remainder of cake mix.
Bake
the cake in the pre-heated oven for 75 minutes, or until the
cake is golden brown.
Leave
to cool for 30 minutes before serving.
If
you have any recipe suggestions which use apples or other Irish
fruits then please let
us know. We'd love to pass them on.
_________________________________________________
|
