Much as we love long summer evenings sipping cider in the sun, unlike most Brits, we are really excited at the prospect of autumn arriving and bringing with it peak apple season! For us it is like Christmas. We have waited all year to see what we’ll get this harvest and it looks like this one really won’t disappoint!
Autumnal Expectations
Harvest season usually starts in early October and will run right through until the end of November, although this year started a little earlier. All our apples come from orchards within a 30 mile radius of the cider works but apple variety (we pick over 70 different types) and orchard location mean that some of our apples are ready to harvest before others. As harvest time approaches we make regular checks on each orchard to identify the optimum moment to bring in each bountiful crop. Our regular inspections throughout the summer have already indicated that this year is set to be an epic harvest!
A Bumper Crop
If you have any fruit trees in your own garden you have probably experienced the same success this year too. A mild spring and the sunniest summer for some time has left our trees groaning under the weight of fruit, and we’re looking forward to a harvest around a third bigger than last year. In fact, it looks set to be the biggest harvest we have known at the cider works. The extra hours of sunshine should have boosted sugar levels too, which means this could also be the sweetest harvest on record for us. The very un-British weather has also meant that the apples are ripening early and were already beginning to drop in late August, so it’s all happening a lot earlier than normal.
Harvest Hands
We don’t pick cider apples from the trees, we wait until the fruit has fallen onto the ground. This is an indication that the tree has given the apple as many nutrients and as much flavour as it possibly can. Only then is it ready for harvesting. Some of this, particularly in our ancient orchards, is done by hand, some is more mechanised, but all of it takes a heroic team effort that brings the local community together. Our staff are joined by a band of temporary harvest hands who work shifts from sunrise to sunset, six days a week, to help us get all the apples into the mill and pressed whilst they are at their very best.
From Orchard to Tank
During harvest, we take delivery of around three thousand tonnes of apples, this year it could be more like four thousand tonnes! We float them from huge bays on the forecourt into the cider works along a waterway created using the rainwater run off from the roof. Then the apples are sorted by hand from the twigs and leaves, crushed and then pressed into apple juice, ready to be fermented and matured in our huge vats. This year we are anticipating so many apples that we have had to invest in eight new tanks, giving us 400,000 litres more capacity! It’s going to be a very busy harvest this year but it is always very satisfying to see the year’s crop start its journey to becoming fabulous cider.
Apple Day
Right in the midst of harvest is the annually celebrated Apple Day, on 21st October. It was launched in 1990 as a celebration of the diversity of heritage fruit varieties available and the ones we are in danger of losing. It also aims to raise awareness of food heritage and to help us better understand where our fruit comes from. It’s something we wholeheartedly support and it’s the perfect excuse to visit an orchard, harvest and press some apples or rustle up an apple-based recipe. We are usually at our busiest on 21st October but we always take time to enjoy a glass of cider in celebration.
Pressing Business
In fact, with community orchards springing up across the country and a renewed interest in countryside traditions and connecting with nature, apple celebrations are popping up throughout the autumn. Occombe Farm, near Paignton, is celebrating its apple harvest on 27th and 28th September and Ben’s Farm Shop, Staverton, is holding a community apple pressing day on the same weekend. We will also be, once again, inviting the community to bring their apples to Darts Farm, Topsham to be pressed.
Harvest Reflections
Then, when all the apples are safely gathered in, pressed and fermenting into fabulous cider, we can sit back and celebrate a successful harvest with a cider or two! That is when we will start to consider how this year’s harvest will affect next year’s ciders. We will be pressing at least 70 different varieties and, amongst them, there are going to be a lot more of the rare apples that we have been identifying in our DNA mapping project. We are hoping to create some really interesting small batch blends with these so there should be some pretty special varieties to enjoy next summer. Watch this space!
