Orchard Maintenance & Pest Control

The pruning is now complete for this year. I didn't remove much wood in the end, just a few laterals in the wrong place, and most of the leaders needed tipping back to encourage strong growth and more laterals to break along the trunk. This light pruning work is very satisfying, but you have to constantly remind yourself to only make cuts where absolutely necessary. There is often a temptation to prune too heavily just for the sake of it, or the belief that the ideal tree shape can only be achieved by drastic tree surgery. Much of the remaining work to create a good tree shape will involve the tying down of upright branches in the Spring, and allowing the older trees to bear a small crop of apples. This should prevent the trees from growing too vigorously, and will also help to bring the more upright growing branches into fruiting, since the spurs which will eventually bear a crop of apples tend to form on horizontal growing branches.

Whilst working in the orchard the air was busy with the to-ing and fro-ing of Blackbirds, Blue Tits and Robins, all welcome visitors, particularly the Blue Tits which flit around the trees removing the many over-wintering bugs. Most days at this time of year we see Pheasants in the orchard, usually a rich chestnut and golden cock accompanied by a harem of flighty hens. They're a lovely sight, and they always do their bit by hoovering up insects and grubs from the grass. One visitor we are not so keen to see is a rabbit which has set up home beneath our neighbours garden. It loves the new grass in the orchard, and regularly makes a nuisance of itself in our vegetable patch during the Summer. I'm now hoping for a return visit from the young Sparrowhawk which dined in the orchard this Summer. The bird must surely be experienced enough to tackle a rabbit by now, but in the meantime it's just as well we took the advice of experienced orchardists and protected all our young trees with wire guards. Rabbits seem to have a particular liking for the bark of young apple trees, and whilst pruning I made sure that all the guards were in good shape, with no rabbit-sized gaps in evidence.

The hardest task was clearing the growth of weeds and grass from around each tree. Semi-dwarfing bush trees like these do not appreciate competition for nutrients from grasses and weeds, so it's essential in the early years to prevent this growth from encroaching around the tree. To be honest, I haven't tried hard enough to maintain this in the orchard, and I'll need to deal with this more rigorously next year, but an hour or so of hand weeding on a frosty December day has made a big difference, and I now feel all is ready in the orchard for the coming Spring.

Pruning time...

There's a welcome lull in the cidermaking, with nothing much to do until it's time to 'rack-off' the ciders in the new year. I'm really looking forward to this part of the operation because despite involving a new round of cleaning and sterilising, and the time consuming syphoning of large quantities of cider from one vessel to another, this will the first opportunity to guage how the finished cider is likely to taste. In the meantime my attention has turned to our garden mini-orchard.

In addition to an old but productive Bramley, and a rather sorry looking, but equally productive eating apple, we have 16 young cider apple trees in our small orchard at the top of the garden. The Dabinett's and Harry Masters' Jersey's were planted two years ago, with the addition of 4 Yarlington Mill a year later, all on M26 semi-dwarfing rootstock. The aim is to produce a small orchard of compact, heavy-cropping bush trees, and to this end I'm attempting to train the trees to the 'centre leader' form favoured in modern bush cider apple orchards. A combination of shorter days, colder weather, and the mighty gales we've had in the last few days have now removed the last few leaves from our fledgling trees, and it's now time to do a bit of pruning.

I've already ventured up a ladder to continue the renovation of the old Bramley (seen here before any pruning work had been carried out, on a rare snowy day), a difficult but neccesary job owing to the neglect it suffered under previous owners. The excess of unproductive upwardly growing branches are being brought under control, and the light penetration and air flow through the tree is much better than it was previously. Sadly this tree was in need of this kind of attention long before I took ownership of it, the badly crossing, and in some cases badly rubbing main branches will never be fully put right. Replacing this tree with more of the cider varieties would make good sense for future cider production, but it's the heart of the orchard and I feel it would be wrong to replace it whilst it still has a few pies and crumbles left in it.

The new cider apple trees present a different challenge. The work I do now will help (or hinder) the formation of strong, healthy trees, hell-bent on producing bumper crops of high quality cider apples, with little or no need for the kind of drastic renovation work needed by the poor Bramley in their later years. All I need to do now is read every book on pruning I can lay my hands on, oil the Felco pruners, and hope I've learnt enough from previous years efforts to make a decent job of it.

Christmas is coming...

With no cider left from the 2006 vintage to sell, and only a bottle or two left for our own drinking pleasure, there will be no Rockingham Forest Cider delivered by Santa this year. We'll have to remember to put a few bottles by next year, but in the meantime we've created a few branded items we're sure friends and family will be only too happy to receive as a Christmas stocking filler! The design used for the various items is our lovely logo, which was designed for us by the outrageously talented Leicestershire artist, and old friend of ours, Diana Fegredo (that's old friendship, not old Diana!). Diana has just begun an exhibition of her work at the Victoria Hall, Oakham, which will run until 28th November. Another great Christmas shopping opportunity.

There is a link at the bottom of this page to our expanding range of branded items, and with the exchange rate as it is, this is a good time to buy from this American site.

The Final Turn of the Screw

Ok, so this is perhaps not the most exciting video to be found on the Internet, but it's highly significant for us nevertheless. This is a video record of this year's very last pressing, a juicy blend of Yarlington Mill, Dabinett and Brown's Apple; and absolutely the last cider apples that will pass through these hands until next year's cidermaking season. Enthusiasm for the hard graft of cidermaking was definitely on the wane, and those old injuries, and the inevitable strains and pains of lifting and shovelling were starting to take their toll.

Having said that, there is something very satisfying about watching several gallons of dark, sweet juice flowing from a well made 'cheese' of apple pulp, and the steady burble of gasses escaping from airlocks has a busy, industrious cadence, which drives you on to press more apples, fill more barrels, make more delicious cider........

Oh dear! I think it's definitely time to hang up the rubber gloves for another year. This cidermaking malarkey could become a bit of a habit.

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

The Ciderhouse is now filled with a fizzing, bubbling assortment of juice-filled fermenting tubs. We've almost hit our target of 1000 litres, and still hope to achieve this when the final few sacks of apples are pressed later this week. The juice has been checked with a hydrometer, and should give us a cider with an alcohol level of around 6.5%, which is just about where we like it to be. High enough in alcohol to prevent the cider from spoiling in storage, but not so strong as to put cautious drinkers off from trying our cider.

The yeast is merrily doing it's bit for the cidery cause, and in the process creating the unmistakable, slightly skunky odour of fermenting fruit. This is a good thing, even though Karen wrinkles her nose up at the smell whenever she ventures into the ciderhouse. The racket coming from below our bedroom is not so good. I've had to put large pebbles on top of some of the airlocks to stop them rising up and crashing down with a hollow 'thock' every few seconds. If things don't calm down soon (unlikely to be honest) we may have to take a short vacation in the spare bedroom, at least until the snap, crackle, and pop of fermentation eases off a little.