The event was hugely popular with the public, with hundreds of people streaming through the doors all of Saturday to taste Scottish apple varieties, sample freshly pressed juice, and have their fruit identified by the resident expert John Butterworth.
Stephi demonstrates the apple master
Lots of folk went away impressed by the diversity and flavour of Scottish apples, and a few lucky folk were able to identify old trees that had been growing in their gardens for hundreds(!) of years.
After filling up our stores with apples in the last two days, today was a day for juicing and giving them out at our local apple day. The event, hosted and organised by Bridgend allotment community health project was a great day – small enough to feel friendly, but packed with lots of fun events and crafty things.
On top of scratting and juicing hundreds of apples, volunteers had the opportunity to try some fantastic home made pies, bake in the cob oven, and throw bashed apples at the local rodent.
We set up our stall to display our recently collected apples and a collage of fruit from our apple identification chart. There were other groups present too – bespoke organics events had a great catering stall with some delicious vegan chocolate cake, as well produce from other local groups such as Redhall walled garden, the Engine shed, and the chocolate tree.
Over at the barbeque there were beef burgers from Whitmuir organics, and in the allotments a local storyteller told us a story about the one-eyed lady of Skye.
All in all it was a great day, and the sun shone on us too. Well done Bridgend for hosting a great event, and heres to the next one!
With a busy weekend of apple days ahead of us we arranged another picking at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital Orchard. It is difficult to for us to find an opportunity to get large numbers of people together to pick apples, so we thought picking in the orchard rather than a private garden might be a chance to do just that.
So we headed along to the orchard after work, and had some fun climbing the trees to shake some apples down. In the end we only harvested from two trees, but we still came away with just about as much apples as our volunteers could handle. We were also joined by a couple of folk from the Re-union project who were gathering apples for a future apple day with one of the schools bordering the union canal.
Although it had been a beautiful autumn day, the nights are fair drawin’ in, and by 7pm there was a chill in the air. It feels as if winter is just around the corner, so we better make the most of the daylight hours after work and get picking!
Our apple picking continues on at full pace – last week we returned to a garden brimming with apples and pears in the Grange to pick the later ripening varieties. This time we came with a equipped with a our new tarp, and found that shaking the apples off the tree onto the tarp is not only lots of fun, it is also one of the quickest ways of getting masses of stubborn cooking apples off the trees.
Even though we had already visited this garden before, we still came away with sacks and sacks of apples. Now that we have a bit more expertise we were able to identify one of the nicest tasting apples as a Norfolk Royal Russet – which is apparently a very good eating apple for Scotland.
Last week we were out picking apples again, although this time with the Friends of the Orchard group at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.
The Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Morningside has an orchard within its grounds that was planted out after the second world war. Originally patients at the hospital worked in the orchard for therapeutic purposes or a small income, and the apples went to the hospital kitchens. However, with time ideas about healthcare changed and later management deemed the work exploitative, despite many patients reportedly enjoying the work. With no-one working the orchard it came to be neglected, and interest in the trees has only recently been revived thanks to the Artlink project, who saw potential in the site for therapeutic work.
Artlink are still trying to revive interest in the orchard, and bring in members of the local community to help maintain it. On Wednesday we came along to the open day and picked some apples for distribution at local apple days. The orchard is really magical, with scores of mature apple trees thriving amongst a carpet of nettles. With the trees being so old many of the apples were quite high up, but with the help of our picking pole we came away with lots of Aldermans, Newton Wonders, and a handful of sweet tasting crab apples.
If you’re interested in helping out with the orchard, or have ideas for how it could be used, please do get in touch using our email at the bottom of the page.
Our appearance at painting Edinburgh Green went swimmingly on Saturday. We were giving out apples and flyers and spreading the word. After lunch there was an opportunity to make juice using our own apples – something that went down very well with the children.
The next events coming up will be the Royal Edinburgh Orchard’s apple day, followed by Bridgend allotments, and the Botanic gardens. With all the pickings in-between, October is going to be a busy month…
We’ve been out picking again, this time in Craighouse. On Friday we visited a family with a couple of apple trees and helped them turn their apples into juice. Surprisingly none of the children had ever eaten the apples, but once they had seen the enthusiasm of our volunteers they gave them and try and loved it.
We produced a couple of servings from the apples – enough for all the family, our volunteers Soraya and Kristina, and even some for the neighbours.
Abundance Edinburgh will be attending Painting Edinburgh Green on Saturday. We’ll be bringing some of our apples and a press, so come and see us if you’d like to try some freshly pressed juice.
There will be lots of fun to be had for kids (big and small) bashing the apples to a pulp so they can go in the press. If you have apples you can bring or a tree you’d like harvesting, please come and see us at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall this Saturday from 11am-4pm.
We were out again on Friday, this time picking apples in Merchiston. This was our first opportunity to use our brand new 5m long extendible apple tickler, which was both practically useful and a lot of fun. We also invested in some harvest bags which are very useful for keeping both hands free while you are climbing a tree.
