Yesterday's farm..what if it comes back?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

RAS wrote: »

So where is the nearest area to your home where food is grown in quantity? Find out who arms/market gardens and start talking to them. Develop local food networks that bring their produce to your area.

Ditto elderberry trees, hawthorn, rowan, nut trees etc.

As far as I can tell, the Kentish Weald is closest at about 20 miles. Not exactly accessible with my Freedom Pass, unfortunately (the journey planner estimates it would take about 7 and a half hours). I have no problems buying stuff - that's what the internet is useful for - but I have no way, like many people do, of actually producing the stuff myself.

I know where I can get elderberries, hawthorn, crab apples, etc. But for some weird reason, and I have been very polite, people round here seem to resent someone asking to deal with fruit on trees in their garden.

One had a medlar tree groaning with fruit bletting away and refused point blank to even consider it , many have apple trees and each one has gone and dumped bundles of fruit to rot in the nearest woods rather than let someone come in their garden and take it. I would have still considered the medlars when dumped, but they had chucked what smelled like weedkiller over them. Perhaps they had lots of people pestering them and decided that nobody would benefit from their tree.

choille

Well Jojo - sounds like you have a bunch of rotten apples for neighbours - how mean.

They'll get rats.

RAS

rhiwfield wrote: »

RAS, I'm not sure I follow totally.
For 1 above presumably apples are picked aug-oct and ripen in storage thru til May/June but would need refrigeration in latter months?

Most apples that are suitable for early picking ripen pretty quickly and need eating before November, some a LOT earlier. Often the season is weeks.

Some of the midseason apples like Cox can be picked under-ripe and kept cool until the spring when they are ripe or allowed to ripen on the tree. The Cox's we picked at the end of October were already very ripe.

However, other varieties are not so much unripe as bullet-like in late October. I struggled to break one variety I took for identifying free from the tree. I would not even be tempted to tackle them with an ordinary kitchen knife, but with a freezer knife. These do not ripen until after Christmas and keep well if kept cool but do not need artifical cooling until very late. As a householder you could probably take a risk if the apples were in a cool north facing space.

As it happens I have a list that I sent a friend in a stick here right now, so will add them at the end.

rhiwfield wrote: »

For 2 cox would normally be eaten by March if left at external ambient temp (say garage) with no energy cost but last another 3 months if refrigerated?

Have never tried this, as I would not attempt to lengthen the season beyond the normal limit.

Do you remember all those adverts for "Le crunch". promoting GD? The reason the French went for GD is that of all the eaters it has the longest keeping characteristics. It is still the source of just about all modern varieties that jkeep into June.

rhiwfield wrote: »

So is the main UK apple harvest including stored but ripening fruit (without external energy usage) August-March, but August to June with external energy usage?

Pretty much. Very late July until early April for eaters and August to May for cookers without energy usage.

rhiwfield wrote: »

For my benefit what UK apple is ready in July?

When I was a child the Beauty of Bath ripened in late July as will Gladstone. There are a few others.

rhiwfield wrote: »

Assuming that UK apples are available for at least 6 months of the year, why dont people just enjoy the soft fruit season for the rest of the year?.

Exactly. Last night I found my mind turning to early rhubarb in March. I will enjoy that so much. I have the last of the raspberries, blackberries and red currants right now.


List of late eaters

Lord Burghley December to March
Court Pendu plat – December to April
Sturmer Pippin – January to April (June)
Brownlees Russett = December to March (April)
Royal Russet ????
Green Balsam – January to May
Rosemary Russet – December to March
Winston January to April - self fertile (1920's)


Late cookers

Lady Henniker – November - January
Lane's Prince Albert November to March
Bramley's Seedling November to March (April)
Alfriston November – April
Dunelow's seedling November to April (May)
Northern Greening – December to March (April)
Annie Elizabeth – November to April (June)
Nancy Jackson November to May

These are pretty random as there are others - they mostly come from a pre-WW1 catalogue issued by Backhouse of York, so the dates are for middle/northen England. Months in brackets indicate storage dates requiring additional resources.

Hope that helps.

RAS

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

But for some weird reason, and I have been very polite, people round here seem to resent someone asking to deal with fruit on trees in their garden.

.................... Perhaps they had lots of people pestering them and decided that nobody would benefit from their tree.

Wow - dreadful.

We had our first picking season this year and most people were OK. Their trees will be pruned in January by way of payment.

This is the project that inspired us http://www.growsheffield.com/pages/groShefNews.html

Given the learning curve and rather adhoc system, it went well. Some fruit went to community groups and the rest is converted to juice or preserves and sold, mainly at community events.

Would the householders feall different if they heard about the project over the radio and saw posters up before being approached? Some of the tree-owners volunteered at local events.

Or are they just mean?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Not sure how they would react. Maybe they'd feel under pressure, which I wouldn't want to do to them.

Well, they're their trees, I suppose they have the right to waste the fruit if they wish. Avoided the area as much as possible afterwards, though - clouds of drunk wasps aren't my idea of fun!

Will stick to the common land, I think. Most people who try to strip a plant don't actually look below knee level or away from the side facing the path.

But at least I know what the plants are. If it comes to it, knowledge is still power!

lostinrates

Jojo, I find that terrible, even worse that the wretches who came and stole last years quinces from our garden. (we were so upset: whats worse, they took them too early!)

re weeing, all my neighbours do it. I guess we must all be quite liberal.

As regards imported meat...well, I agree, but while environmental concerns are more long lasting the welfare implications of methods of production are an immeadiate one. DH and I eat very good quality local meat...less often than people who eat cheap and/or imported meat with two veg daily.

I'd be more than happy to share some garden space, nice to have the company too, but of course, there are things that need to be agreed, around times..of access/aesthetics/compatibility (e.g. organic or not). I think its a great idea, but could be hader n practise than theory.

Davesnave

Very interesting, reading about all the apple varieties. We inherited around 50 different types here, but not all have done well, so there may be only 35 before long. Nevertheless, that's still a lot of apples to identify! Next year we'll be more organised and take some along to the nearest Apple Day; this year we've just written notes for each tree. Some will be easier than others; there's one that's still ripening, for example, and another with a distinctive shape.

We've been told that many are old local varieties, but that's as far as local knowledge goes. Originally, we were promised a map of all the trees, complete with names, but then we were given to believe there was SFP on offer too.....:mad:

From our POV, it would have been better if at least half of the trees had been suitable for commercial sale: i.e. for juicing or cider-making. I'm not convinced there's much to be made from them in monetary terms otherwise. Around here, in the nearby town and village, people put out their surplus apples in boxes with a note for folk to help themselves.

A pity we are out of your way a bit, Jo-jo; our medlars remain something of an acquired taste! Mind you, with the neglect they've had, my first job with them will be to get their shape back and fruiting will take second place.

RAS

Davesnave wrote: »

We inherited around 50 different types here, but not all have done well, so there may be only 35 before long. Nevertheless, that's still a lot of apples to identify! Next year we'll be more organised and take some along to the nearest Apple Day; this year we've just written notes for each tree.

If you only have one year's experience with these trees, I would be tempted to give them another year in case they are biennal? Up here anyway, the apple harvest has been very mixed - we seem to have had a "weather event" that knocked a lot of the early flowering trees out this year. For me it was rain rain and rain.

Also if you pruned them last year and they are tip-bearers, that could affect them adversely.

Davesnave

RAS wrote: »

If you only have one year's experience with these trees, I would be tempted to give them another year in case they are biennal? Up here anyway, the apple harvest has been very mixed - we seem to have had a "weather event" that knocked a lot of the early flowering trees out this year. For me it was rain rain and rain.

Also if you pruned them last year and they are tip-bearers, that could affect them adversely.

Sorry, I'm not being clear here. By 'not doing well,' I mean that since they were planted 8 or 9 years ago, some have become stunted and look unhealthy, which is hardly surprising with the amount of neglect & weed growth.
We will give all, except the weakest, a bit of pruning, a dose of manure and at least another few years of trials before doing anything drastic.

We succumbed today and lit the inefficient, oil-fired Aga. So far we have survived entirely on wood + a little electric fire boost here & there. The Aga will have to go within a year or so. It isn't fully up to temperature yet, but we have some quinces in it, poaching slowly. Must admit those had me fooled for a bit, as I initially searched the web in vain for my 'hairy pears!':rotfl:

RAS

rhiwfield wrote: »

TBH, I'm still not wholly convinced by the transition movement even though I do believe in a lower carbon lifestyle and am trying to make a real effort to reduce energy usage, use of fossil fuels, waste and externally sourced food.

Nor am I but I believe in backing all horses that looking like running well.

I am going to quote the web-site

Cheerful disclaimer!
Just in case you were under the impression that Transition is a process defined by people who have all the answers, you need to be aware of a key fact.
We truly don't know if this will work. Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale.
What we are convinced of is this:

• if we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late
• if we act as individuals, it'll be too little
• but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.

rhiwfield wrote: »

My reservations are more a reaction against the arty-f*rty language of positive visioning, inclusion, openness, subsidiarity, psychological models etc. I've read on one or two transition sites that they want to engage more with the average man in the street and it does seem quite middle class and hippyish atm.

The idea of "Transition" was devised to describe a process by which a community devised an Energy Descent Plan from the bottom up.

And the EDP was not some smart creation resulting from years of thought. A young permaculture teachers showed his students the film End of Suburbia without watching it first. Faced with their distress he felt morally obliged to help them deal with their feelings and to create something positive from the experience. So he asked them what Kinsale would look like in 20 years time when it had successfully grown into a low carbon society? That became the first EDP.

When the Hopkins were burnt out of their cob house, the family moved to Totnes and Rob started asking the same question locally and writing about it. The transition network happened because people wanted to do the same thing in their town, not because anyone from Totnes went evangelising in Brixton or Brighton.

Some of the arty - fa rty stuff comes out of the philosphies people brought but a huge amount comes from a genuine concern to help people dealing with their feelings about the current situation and protect them from burn-out. They can't counsel everyone but they do train groups to recognise when it is all getting too much.

They also identified fairly early on that one of the reasons people were drawn to is the idea that it does not have to be doom and gloom and disaster and the end of life as we know it. The response of a lot of people to the disaster scenarios is a) denial and b) hopelessness. Neither is a right lot of use in trying to solve any problem, so they encourage a positive attitude.

I doubt if anyone involved 5 years ago believed what has happened would be possible, except in their wildest dreams, maybe.

On a person level, like many who have contributted to this debate, I have assumed for most of my adult life that the crap would hit the fan sometime soon, and probably in my lifetime.

In that we are unusual; most folk seem to think that there would be more and more and more of everything for ever with no cost.

Certainly until 5 years ago, even though I was aware of climate change, I did not realise the severity of the problem. I was at a talk this week that put the limits to growth in perspective; in the last century the population has increased by a factor of 4 and bit and average consumption of all resources has increased by a factor of 6. So every year humans use 25 times as much as in 1905. For me that started to explain why thing have started to gow so comprehensively wrong so quickly.

Anyway, going to get back to the topic in hand.