Cider Apples Are Go...

It's been a very productive weekend in the orchard...

Shaking down the very large crop of Yarlington Mill cider apples. Five of the seven trees are cropping heavily this year, though sadly some of the the trees have suffered as a result. The very dry conditions seem to have made the wood drier and less flexible and the very heavy crops and high winds have caused several large branches to break under the strain.

By the time we finish harvesting all the Yarlington Mill trees, we will have approaching 100 of these bags of apples to transport home. It will then be a couple of weeks or more before they have fully matured and are ready to press. Despite the large quantity of these 'vintage quality' bittersweet cider apples, it remains to be seen how much juice they'll actually yield, since the apples seem rather light in weight to us this year.

The Aylestone picking team take a well earned rest at the Crown & Trumpet after a hard day in the orchard. The illumination around Susan head is not an optical effect, that really is a Halo. Susan capped her performance on Sunday with a difficult perry pear picking session today.