Kitchen Garden Forum

Here in Kent, farmers are digging out whole orchards of Bramley apples; the market for them in the UK - amazingly - is in long term decline. Tastes, apparently, have changed. Yet when I go to supermarkets, I don't see any other cooking apples for sale. So does that mean people are no longer cooking with apples? If not, they're crazy.

Last autumn, I walked through a MASSIVE apple orchard just down the road from where I live and hardly recognised any of the varieties hanging from the trees, while the names on the labels meant nothing to me at all; they certainly weren't old favourites.

And yet my taste in apples has changed, too! I was brought up in Bedfordshire, where the subtle tasting Laxtons abounded. However, they don't store well, so have been replaced. I was stunned to find that Granny Smiths are actually Australian, as are my favourite apples: Pink Ladies, which won't grow at all in the UK climate, since there isn't enough sun.

What worries me is that tastes may change so radically that the type of apples we eat are no longer grown here, but have to be imported from Australia or South Africa. And that will be a sad day indeed...

We still get Irish Bramleys here but tastes in rural areas are less to do with fashion! And the irish are very clannish re produce

I've got a Bramley and a Newton Wonder for cooking and much prefer the Newton Wonder, it has a very good flavour and keeps well, but even though it is an old variety it never appears in the shops. I always look for British apples in the shops when I've used mine up and refuse to buy foreign ones. Saying that whatever you buy from the shop they aren't a patch on the taste of home grown apples.

I have a discovery growing in a big pot (a fovourite of my husbands) - only had it a couple years. It had blossom last year and a few very small apples (which quickly fell off) ... Think I need to learn to look after it properly - any tips would be much appreciated. I haven't attempted to prune it - there isn't that much of it that could be pruned without it turning it to just a stick in a pot!

Pawty

Pawty, have you got a second apple tree around? That sounds like it wasn't pollinated. I've got a discovery, and a brayburn (I cant spell it) and neither are self fertile, and need a second apple tree to pollinate it. However bramly apples are infertile and won't pollinate other apples

Braeburn I think.

peter wrote:Braeburn I think.

I think you may be right... I'll look later when I go to water up