Sunday, October 27, 2013

Apple Days

I don't have any apple trees in my garden but the house next door but one does.  When I moved here an elderly gentleman called Arthur lived there, he'd planted the trees many years ago. Arthur died a few years ago and his house is now rented to a very pleasant young couple who have absolutely no interest in their garden at all so they let my neighbour and I pick as many apples as we like.


Yesterday, mindful of an approaching storm, we picked the final ones.  

One of the trees we think is an egremont russet


One is possibly a cox


And one is totally unidentified; a redish, very juicy eater


But the best of all are the cookers.  


They are much sweeter than normal cookers and hardly need any sugar at all but we have no idea which variety they are.  They're the size of a bramley but yellower in colour - anyone know what variety they could be?


I made chutney from some of the windfalls


And will freeze some of the other cookers for use over the winter, but I'll keep some to bake later, filled with some dried fruit and brandy - yum!

9 comments:

Jill said...

Your reddish one may be a Spartan which we have in our garden. It has a red, smooth skin and is very juicy and best eaten fresh. They go a bit soft, but keep well in the fridge. Our tree is laden this year we have given bags and bags away, as well as making lots of chutney.

Celia Hart said...

They all look lovely - I have no idea what the cooker may be.
I'm making an Italian Apple Cake - recipe in yesterday's paper - with a obvious wrong conversion from ml to fl oz... but which one is the correct one to use! I have guessed and crossed my fingers!
C xx

Mystic Quilter said...

The first apple does look like an Egremont Russet, we did have one a numbr of years ago. Wish we had aB Bramley here in our garden, love my English cookers.
Lucky you and lucky neighbour!

Anonymous said...

What a lovely assortment you have. The other day we were right outside the Hook Norton Brewery and I saw a box full of Bramleys, being given away. I snaffled two and plan on making an apple cake, but not an Italian one as Celia is.

Anna said...

Oh Su it's good to read that you and your neighbour are able to make good use of Arthur's legacy. They must be mature trees and presumably produced a lot of fruit this year. This site is brilliant for apple info including id :
http://www.orangepippin.com/apples

French Nanny said...

A neighbiur here in France has a Bramley apple tree and the fruit is green at first, turning yellower and then red the longer they stay on the tree!

Penny
x

French Nanny said...

Oh, and you could test the Cox - do you know the seeds make the apples rattle if they are ripe?

Penny
x

Jo said...

Fancy having apple trees which produce such lovely fruit in the garden and not bothering picking it. I'm glad it's not going to waste. I bet the young couple buy their apples from the supermarket. Their loss is your gain, I wish I had a neighbour who didn't want their apples.

Sue Garrett said...

It is so difficult to identify apples - we have a similar problem and just have to go on guesswork. I understand apple days are good venues if you want apples identified.