Orchard Progress

It occurred to me that there haven't been many pictures of the orchard itself on the blog. Today was a barmy 23 degrees C sunny September day so I took some photos.  They can be viewed via this link to our Picasa web album.

When growing young trees you are advised to take any fruit off the trees in their early years, so that the trees develop a strong root system.  So, when you look at these photographs there isn't much to see, fruit wise. Hopefully though you'll see significant progress in how the orchard looks. We've lots of work still to do but we're getting there.

Here is a photo of the sign Trisha made for us.

Apple Day 2011

Baking - delicious!

We had a very successful Apple Day on Saturday 24th September.  Wonderful home baking by plotholders and community orchard volunteers sold out. 















 We pressed gallons of apple (and some pear) juice with the help of young and old.  Almost all the fruit we pressed was fallen fruit gathered from plots on our site, so not only were we all drinking delicious juice we were using food that would otherwise have been wasted.

 Loading press with crushed apple.

Ready to be pressed.

Apple Tasting in the pavilion was also very popular.  We asked people on the site to provide us with some apples for people to sample, and we also had a couple of varieties from the community orchard. Even though the trees on the orchard are very young, we had some Fillingham Pippin (a delicious crisp eater) and one very large cooker - Lord Suffield. This is as close as we can get to having a Manchester apple variety. It was created in Middleton and we're very lucky to have a tree as they aren't widely available.  Phil Rainford from the Northern Fruit Group provided us with a scion when we had the grafting workshop in March 2010 after a long search to find somewhere with a Lord Suffield tree.

The Lord Suffield apple was huge - a testament to the advice to thin your crop to get a smaller number of larger apples... I took all but one fruit bud off when they formed and the result was a very large fruit.  Yes, I know that strictly speaking you shouldn't let any fruit form on very young trees, but if you can't locate any trees like the one you have locally, isn't it important to get an idea of what the fruit looks and taste like? 

Its a yellow cooker and everyone who tasted a slice of Lord Suffield said it was a good cooker - the sort that would cook into a delicious puree - and that it was not too tart either, so wouldn't need much sweetening.

Visitors to the community orchard  might have spotted a wonderful "Orchard 49" sign on the shed door, crafted from recycled materials by Trisha Church - thanks, its wonderful.

Thanks also to all the volunteers on the day, the bakers, the cleaners and gleaners for making the event such a success.

Dehydrating tales

Laura describes her first experience of using the dehydrator featured in the Low Carbon Preserving workshop held on 10th September 2011.

"I began using the food dehydrator last week and am very pleased with the results so far. I already have a tin full of dried apple rings which should see us well into the winter. They're so delicious that I have to make myself eat fresh ones and save the rings for later! I'm particularly pleased that these are all local Old Trafford apples given to me by allotment neighbours so there are no food miles involved and the cost was to happily pick apples in the autumn sunshine - what a bargain!

Tomatoes dehydrated

There is a satisfying, therapeutic effect from coring and slicing dozens of apples to neatly arrange on the dehydrator's trays. It offers the dual luxuries of daydreaming while also feeling very productive. Apples rings are first dipped in a solution of water and lemon juice to keep their colour, then dried on a clean tea towel before going into the dehydrator. It does take some time but the result is worth it. If we can manage not to just eat them all I plan to make cakes with them in a few months time. 

Tomatoes are particularly rewarding to dry (and less time-consuming than apples) as it's impossible eat all that my plants produce. I really prepared for this tomato season by abstaining for months beforehand but there are still only so many variations on tomato-based dinners one can eat!! In addition, they shrink massively so I have 40 or 50 tomatoes stored in one small jam jar. When I've done the lot (they are still ripening) I'm going to store them in olive oil  and they should keep until this time next year; although I expect we'll scoff them long before that. My tomatoes are small so I have just cut them in half which was quick and easy.

How it works

Elderberries are a faff to handle as they're so small. They're tender when fresh and then even tinier when dried. However I enjoyed foraging for them and will enjoy making biscuits with those delicious little fruits later.

The rose hips that I found when I was getting the elderberries will make a lovely infusion throughout the winter. Rose hip tea is excellent for warding off colds (full of vitamin C) and looks really pretty in my glass tea pot!  

I have just put in a load of damsons to dry, which were also given to me by an allotment neighbour. These I washed, dried on a tea towel and slit up the side. I'm hoping they will dry ok - so far they seem to be turning leathery and prune-like. I couldn't face destoning them as they are so small and I've already dealt with 2 gluts of plums this summer. A friend has a gadget for destoning damsons which I may borrow next time.

I'm really pleased with my turn with the OTAGS dehydrator. I urge anyone with a glut to consider borrowing it. It's fun and productive and the end result is very satisfying. I haven't really started using my dried produce yet, besides a few cheeky nibbles, as the point is to store it for a while and concentrate on all the fresh stuff there is still about. Anyway I love seeing it on my shelves as a reminder of all that happened this growing season; it's comforting to know too that it'll be a while yet before I resume shopping in Unicorn or the Manky Superstore."

Low Carbon Preserving Workshop

Saturday 10th September saw OTAGS hosting a preserving workshop in association with Cracking Good Food. The aim of the session was to show how you can manage gluts of produce without spending hours cooking chutneys!  Vicki Leng, local cook and preserving enthusiast took participants through how to dehydrate apples, salt beans, pickle cucumbers and dehydrate tomatoes all in the 3 hour session.

The essential piece of equipment we used during the day was a dehydrator. It has 14 square feet of drying space, and is designed to run on a low heat (the temperature range can be set between (29 - 68 °C) whilst at the same time running a fan to dry the food out.  So unlike dehydrating food in your oven its energy efficient and you can then store food in jars without the need to run a freezer.  Food preserved this way will keep for at least 9 months, so you can be eating sun riped tomatoes that you've grown long after the UK tomato growing season has ended.   If they are really really dry you can just jar them once they've been dehydrated. Or if they have some moisture remaining pack them into small jars and cover with olive oil.

Vicki showing Claire, Dave and Roy how the tomatoes are coming along in the dehydrator.

Similarly, Apple rings are really easy to process with the dehydrator - simply core, thinly slice, dip into some water with lemon juice to stop them from discolouring, load into the dehydrator for 3 hours then pack into sterilised jars.

We also salted beans, which was quick and straightforward. Vicki explained that this isn't a technique that enables you to serve up green beans that will taste the same as those you cook freshly picked in the usual way (e.g. steam). Rather its one way of managing part of your bean glut that doesn't require freezer space or use of fossil fuels.  Very simply, using a clean sterilised jar we packed sliced green beans (french or runner) in layers with salt. A layer of salt followed by a layer of beans, then another layer of salt until the jar was full.  After the beans and the salt have been in the jar overnight you can top up the jar packing more beans and salt in, as the salt draws the water out of the beans which makes them shrink.

We tasted some salted beans that Vicki had de-salted earlier in the day and while they didn't taste like fresh beans adding them to soups, stews and chillis would certainly work... once you've rinsed them to remove as much salt as possible.

The session was funded by our Local Food fund grant for Orchard 49.  Thanks to Laura for organising the workshop and to Vicki for sharing her knowledge with us.

Preserving workshop full

Our Preserving workshop on 10th September is now full.  Vicki may repeat the workshop, in association with Cracking Good Food (charged for, not free). If you are interested get in touch with us or Cracking Good Food.