Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi All , hope your well? Been out foraging Apples on a old Golf course ( as you do) & found two really old Trees laden with these?

Have you tasted them? They could be a large crab or cider apple rather than a dessert if they are sour.

No not tried them yet, will do though , as planning to try & cook with some tomorrow

Connie if you are a RHS member they do apple identification. There is also site gardenappleid.co.uk that has a photo gallery. Might be worth a peep?

Connie777 wrote:Hi All , hope your well? Been out foraging Apples on a old Golf course ( as you do) & found two really old Trees laden with these? 967B7201-04E4-4851-BE9B-F84E1EB0C888.jpeg

Looks very much like Cox's Orange Pippin... exactly like the fruit we used to get off two old gnarly trees we inherited with the house when we lived in Essex. Warts and all - the ones we had always had a bit of russeting (the light brown areas) and a crack or two. If they're Cox and the trees are really old they should be sharp enough to cook with, going by ours.

Hi Judy, they aren’t too sharp but make a lovely crumble, I will definately be back next year for more lol!

Connie777 wrote:Hi Judy, they aren’t too sharp but make a lovely crumble, I will definately be back next year for more lol!

Good stuff! I lived in Basingstoke (in Hampshire) for a few years, and I discovered a secret little stand of apple trees in the middle of a bit of public land that was mainly used for dog walking. The apples were a mix of old and young trees and the fruits from the younger ones were all slightly different, so they were probably seedlings from the older ones. There were about 10 trees, and each had fruit with an individual flavour and texture, and over the years I learned what each was good for - pies, preserves, etc. The area was surrounded by brambles and sloes so not many other folk ventured in there, and in autumn I used to make daily trips to fill my bicycle saddlebag with fruit. The brambles provided free blackberries to add to the apples, and the sloes made delicious gin. Having a resource like this is fantastic, and I was sad when we moved away from the area. Basingstoke was carved out of what was mainly countryside in the 1960s, but lots of little areas like this were left, and along the roads and around the housing estates hedges were planted that incorporated fruit - crab apples, elders, sloes, greengages, and tiny yellow wild plums. I would love to know who was responsible for this part of the town planning, so that I could shake his / her hand. I was a great legacy to leave to the future inhabitants of the town, and it did get used - I met quite a few people in my gathering forays doing the same as I was, and we of course swapped recipes (although not always secret fruit locations...) If only town planners would do the same sort of planting for their citizens now!
I suppose your trees on the golf course might have been part of the garden of a big house once, or they might just have been self-seeded. Interesting to find out which, but that sort of history is a difficult thing to trace. Enjoy your crumbles!

One sometimes wonders how many odd apple trees popping up in unexpected places are the result of somebody casually discarding their old apple cores many years previously. Probabky the onky result of littering which ever bears any positive feuit.

Yes, very true. We are likely to have been responsible for quite a few seedlings when stopping for lunch on our country walks, some of which would have been in your neck of the woods, as I lived in High Wycombe for a while. Having said that, the only provable success I've had with apple pips was a couple of seedlings from a crab apple in the grounds of my brother's wedding venue many years ago. One of these provided crab apples for quite a few years, had to be cut down when the house was extended, but provided another seedling to continue the line in the same garden. The fruit is tiny, but the blossom is lovely, and it provides a reminder of the wedding day. (It rained all day, as far as I remember!)

Hi All, Thanks for replies, in regards to the old shot & put golf course, it was instated in the early nineties, for what i can gather locally in info & closed in early 2000’s , it has become very overgrown & shoulder high in places, luckily some hardy Dog walkers have carved paths through, at the top of the hill there is a large clearing , that is well kept & even mown ? That is where the trees are, all gnarled & worn , ( there are three in total one bramley type, one that i put on here & one that has bright red apples & dark green foliage ( i call the witches apple tree) , I have only picked from two , the red one is directly over a Badger sett, so leaving that alone, at least they set up home in a good place, views & food,