apple day

A day of glorious autumn sunshine and, as it was also apple day, I decided now's the time to harvest this year's crop. It wouldn't normally happen all on one day but only one of the four trees actually had any fruit this year so out came the steps and up I went.

Here we have it, 34 lbs of James Grieve and when I add in the windfalls I've been gathering over the last few weeks I'd say 50 lbs+ of smallish apples.  For anyone wanting a variety that performs well in the north-west I'd recommend James Grieve as it has given us a good crop every single year since we moved here.

After sorting out the keepers and the juicers/cookers I put them in their respective cardboard trays to be dealt with later. In previous years I've brewed big batches of cider but with only one variety it's not going to happen this year. Even the crab apple harvest is very poor so I'll leave what there is for the local wildlife.

And keeping with the fruity theme the autumn rasps are still producing big juicy fruit. Not as sweet as I would like but I guess that's down to the lack of sunshine.

I know I go on a bit about how easy I find growing parsnips but I've been amazed at my own results this year. It must be that the weather has been perfect for parsnips but I never expected to produce a monster like this.

I broke the root getting it out but even so it weighed in at 743g, well over one and a half pounds.  Parsnip soup, anyone?