News & Events

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LEICESTERSHIRE
HERITAGE APPLES PROJECT:
NEWS 2024

EVENTS 2024 and 2025
We are running a grafting course on the third Saturday in Feb 2025, all day, 9.30 for 10.00; £48. If interested please get in touch; email address is diversity(at)suttonelms.org.uk.
Venue is Cosby Methodist Church, Leicestershire LE9 1RN.

IN THE ORCHARD
A more comprehensive guide to what we offer is on Mel Wilson's LHAP website 'In the Orchard', where a list of our LHAP workshops and talks can be found.

EVENTS SUMMARY 2024
Sat 27 Jan: Pruning Day at Cotesbach Hall, 10am - 4pm. (Not an LHAP event)
Sat 17 Feb: all-day Cosby grafting course, 9.30 for 10.00; Cosby Methodist Church; Full
Sun 25 Feb: Grafting session: Judith Egan, Lubenham Grafters & Growers (not LHAP). All day.
Sun 25 Feb: A short grafting course in North Leicestershire, led by Mel Wilson. Full
Sun 30 Jun: Garden Plant Sale & Family Day, L. Uni Botanical Garden, 10.00-5pm.
Tues 4 Sep, 7.30, Talk: Apples: Past Present and Future, Burbage Gardening Gp, at Connie Club.
Sun 6 Oct, 10.00-2.00: Apple Day at Cotesbach Hall. NOTE CHANGED DATE, and earlier time!
Sun 13 Oct, Apple Day, apple tasting at Donisthorpe orchard, 11.00am - 3pm.
Mon 28 Oct, Talk, Apples: Past, Present, Future;S.Wigston Flower/Gdn Club, 2.45, Sal.Army Hall, Ladysmith Rd.
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APPLE DAY, Sun 13 Oct, Donisthorpe Orchard.
Another enjoyable Apple Day in the orchard; an important part of our annual calendar. Folksongs for much of the time, plus a wonderful medley of stalls with homemade produce for sale: cakes, preserves, apple pressing; a cider competition, and of course our apple display, including samples for people to taste free of charge. For the tasting we used eight varieties: Gala, Schneewitchen (Germany), Weirouge (Germany) and Rubinola (Czech Republic). To these we added four of our own seedlings, three of which were redfleshed.

I've put some snaps below. There was a large number of visitors; we had 83 people sample 8 apples and choose their favourite. One person brought an apple to identify - it was King Edward 7th, a long-storing cooker.

We are grateful to the Donisthorpe Community Group for inviting us; we have been attending their apple days now for about a decade. Their next Apple Day will be on 12 October 2025.

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14 Oct 24

APPLE TASTINGS 2 & 3
Julie and I filmed another two apple tastings of midseason apples, on 26 Sept. and 7 Oct. They are now online on youtube.

8 Oct 24

APPLE DAY, Sun 6 Oct, Cotesbach Hall,
A rather quiet apple day, with dull weather. Alison and I gave our apple tasting in the stable yard to a number of enthusiasts who turned up to help with apple pressing and to talk about apples. We showed four named varieties (Rubinola, Weirouge, Red Pinova and Gala) and four of our own-bred seedlings. An enjoyable afternoon for all concerned. Many thanks for the lovely coffee and the superb BLT baps; more than double the usual size and quite delicious! Some snaps are shown below. Click the thumbnails for better pictures.

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7 Oct 24

APPLE TASTING, 4 Sep
The day after the Burbage talk and tasting, I drove over to Julie's and we filmed a tasting of the same 8 apples plus four others. You can view the video here:

Apple Tasting 1, 4 Sep 2024: Early apples

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6 Sep 24

APPLES PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
Talk by Alison and Nigel, Burbage Connie Club, 7.30pm, 3 Sep 2024; we were met by a large enthusiastic audience for our talk.

The first section highlighted the origin of the sweet apple in Kazakstan and its journey across the globe along the ancient trade routes to Rome and eventually to the whole of Europe.

We had a mention of the Burbage apple (Prince Charles) raised by local nurseryman Herbert Robinson (whom some of our audience had known); a little about Leicestershire apples, then on to our introduction to redfleshed apples, our website, and our learning about apple breeding from South African breeder Iwan, who visited us with his friend Reinhard back in 2009.

The second section explained the mechanics of apple breeding, with numerous illustrations, including germination and seedling selection, and the talk concluded with some reports of current market trends and likely developments in apples for the future.

We had a lot of questions from a keen and interested audience; over fifty people attended, and a third of them stayed behind afterwards to taste 8 weird and wonderful apples including five redfleshed varieties: Rosette, Dubbelman, Schneewitchen, Mott's Pink and Redlove Circe (from UK, Sweden, Germany, Califonia and Switzerland).

After adding four more varieties to the list, two of them seedless, the tasting was repeated the day after with my friend Julie Drake, and the video will be going up soon on Youtube.

Four apples were brought along for identification; one person produced a very large and shiny and under-ripe Peasgood Nonsuch; Gillian brought three apples which turned out to be Bess Poole, Bramley and Adam's Pearmain.

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5 Sep 24

GARDEN PLANT & FAMILY DAY, BOTANICAL GARDEN, 30 Jun
Nigel and Alison were at this event, advertising LHAP's acticities and answering questions on apples. The venue was Beaumont House. No less than seven of our previous grafting students came to see us to report on the progress of their own trees. We answered questions on pruning (renovation and maintenance), woolly aphid, powdery mildew, canker, and what must be Pest of the Year: apple ermine moth, which has been common this season and present in most orchards in high numbers.

Our grafting course in Cosby next year (2025) will be on the third Saturday, as usual (Feb 15th, 9.30 for 10.00).

1 Jul 24

COSBY APPLE GRAFTING COURSE, 17 Feb
Another fun day with some learning thrown in.

The course was presented by Nigel and Alison and lasted from 10.00 until 4.00. Some pictures shown below; click on the thumbnails for more detail.

We met at 9.30 for 10.00. There was an introductory talk and a slide show on natural grafting, propagating trees from seed, by cuttings and by grafting..... the way in which bark flows downwards on a tree..... and are there special rootstocks in a time of changing climate? ( the answer is a qualified 'yes;'avoid MM106 if you have a mud problem and seek specialist advice if you have a troublesome site or location). One person pointed out the inaccurate nature of the phrase 'global warming', and highlighted a greater problem: changing weather patterns, dealing with potentially colder winters and hot drier summers, and our dependence on the Gulf Stream for tolerable weather.

There followed a practical session - a 'simulation' illustrating how summer budding is done (you can't do budding in Feb), a digression on roses, layering, logging wild apple trees and the quality of their fruit; shaping a bonsai tree (two of our students were bonsai enthusiasts). And the fascination of apples ... redfleshed fruits; making an espalier symmetrical by raising and lowering branches, chimeras, how to multiply rootstocks from cuttings, woolly aphid, canker, double apples, goblet trees...

We started grafting shortly after midday; after our first cleft graft it was lunch, including a large slice of Alison's apple cake, made with Burford's Redflesh. Then a tasting of Phase 3 apples. (those picked very very late: Nov - New Year). Surprisingly, Grenadine (a Phase 2 apple which doesn't usually store for long), was still reasonably good - after being kept for 14 weeks; it must have been something to do with the long damp autumn, where fruit ripened extremely slowly. Highlights of the tasting were Burford Yellow, Pink Pearl and Christmas Pink.

There's a picture of the apples we tasted below. They were:
Dumelow's Seedling, MM106, Potter's Barn apple, Burford Yellow
Blackjack, Eden Crab, Mere Pippin, Durrant
Burford Redflesh, Hidden Rose, Pink Pearl, Grenadine & Xmas Pink.

We began the afternoon with a couple of whip & tongue grafts on wood where the thicknesses matched. Then we proceeded to wood where they didn't .... chunky thick rootstock and very thin scions, using both kinds of graft. 'Thin on thick' can be difficult, but the students were careful and mastered the technique quickly.

Then it was time to do the real thing - MM106 rootstocks, choosing the varieties, carrying out the grafts. Knife work was good and the grafting was done smoothly and efficiently; then we waxed the joints and the tops; added a grafting envelope ......and the job was complete. A few closing remarks followed, about NOT putting the grafts under cover but finding somewhere where they would be rained on and would not be dessicated when the sun came out or the wind blew. Finish was about 4.00.

We hope you will keep in touch, and we look forward to seeing pictures of your grafts in 2-3 months time!

Footnote - thank you, everyone, for keeping in touch and sending your pictures. Pleased to report that ALL students have sent in pictures of their trees - a first, I think! Remember to keep removing any shoots which appear below the graft. They can be surprisingly persistent. (...ND, 1 Jul 24)

18 Feb 24

ORCHARD PRUNING SESSION, COTESBACH HALL, 27 Jan
Another enjoyable day tidying up the apple trees at Cotesbach. We had a larger-than-usual group with four newcomers assisting; many thanks to everyone who helped. There was a good mix of younger and older trees to work on; everything from an old espalier Rev Wilkes to a young and very vigorous Bramley. The orchard contains a large number of interesting trees - some Leicestershire varities (Prince Charles, Annie Elizabeth, Langton Nonesuch), heritage varieties (Court de Wick, Ribston, Kidd's Orange, Ellison's, Laxton's Fortune), along with pears, plums, a medlar and a 170-year-old Martin's Custard.

Many thanks to Sophy for an enjoyable day and for preparing a delicious lunch.

I've put a few snaps below. Click on the thumbnailis for bigger pictures.

28 Jan 24

APPLE TASTINGS 2023-24
Julie Drake and I have filmed more apple tastings at the Marina in North Kilworth, which makes four so far this season. We will probably do another one in Feb or March, looking at winter storers. The first four videos are:
Apple Tasting 1, 13 Sep 2023: Early Midseason apples
Apple Tasting 2, 11 Oct 2023: Midseason apples
Apple Tasting 3, 6 Nov 2023: Late Midseason apples
Apple Tasting 4, 20 Nov 2023: Late apples
Sorry there wasn't a late Oct video - we both had Covid.

25 Nov 23

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