Crop Share

COVID-19 UPDATE - Once again, like last year, we are pleased to announce that we are taking freshly picked fruit to The Cornerstone at The Corner House at the central crossroads in the middle of Charlbury. The Cornerstone is open10am-1pm every day except Sundays. All the fruit and other food from the Cornerstone is FREE for anyone to take - ALL ARE WELCOME. If you have spare garden produce please take it down there yourself, if you have fruit for picking please contact 811057 or cropshare@charlburygreenhub.org.uk so that the fruit can be identified and picked when ready.

In May 2017, Charlbury Crop Share received the 2017 OCVA Environmental Award from the Oxfordshire Community and Voluntary Action organisation at Oxford Town Hall. This is county-wide recognition that what we are doing in Charlbury is a really good model for other communities to follow. If your community has an Apple Day near the end of October which is a juicing frenzy, then read these links and think again, then read about how Charlbury Crop Share deals with the local apple harvest - yes, there is another way to deal with your apples
. . .

15/07/22 - Just One Thing with Michael Moseley - An Apple a Day Michael delves into the surprising research on the humble apple, revealing how it can help your heart, gut, and brain. He speaks to Dr Catherine Bondonno from Edith Cowan University in Australia to find out how and why simply eating more apples could reduce risk of dying early by up to 35%! They discuss what apples can do to our gut bacteria and blood vessels to keep them healthy.

27/07/19 - Organic apples are ‘better for the gut’ and healthier thanks to diverse bacteria We eat millions of them every year and they are a staple part of a healthy diet. Yet a single apple carries about 100 million bacteria – and most microbes are inside the apple so it won’t matter how much you wash them. The good news is that they are healthy for our gut and apple eaters who devour the core are also eating 10 times as much bacteria than those who discard it.

NHS: 5 A day - What counts?

01/10/14 - How fruit drinks are causing tooth decay in toddlersJuice drinks aimed at infants are simply not necessary and only contribute to children developing a sweet tooth.

17/01/14 - How fruit juice went from health food to junk food For decades fruit juice has been seen as a healthy option. Then this week a primary school banned it after claims that it's as bad for you as Coca-Cola. But how big a health risk does it pose?

12/01/14 - Fruit juice should not be part of your five a day, says government adviser Fruit juice has as much sugar as many soft drinks and should be removed from five-a-day guidance, says obesity expert

20/05/12 - Dentists' warning on smoothies and juices: popular drinks more acidic than vinegar Health-conscious parents are "misguidedly" letting their children's teeth rot by giving them too many fruit smoothies and juice drinks, senior dentists have warned.

And they say people don't want apples . . .

that's what they say in other communities, but it's definitely not true in Charlbury! Enormous thanks to everyone who offers their surplus fruit for picking and redistribution every year rather than see it wasted. We pick fruit from within an 8 mile radius from Charlbury - if you would like your surplus fruit to be savoured rather than wasted, please phone 01608 811057 or email cropshare@charlburygreenhub.org.uk. In 2016 our list of apple varieties reached over 60!

In August and early September, about 250lb of plums, greengages and damsons are picked and given away.

From September through to the end of November, about 2 tonnes of picked apples and pears are given away at six Big Apple Take-Aways on the Playing Close, as well as quince, medlars and grapes - well over 100 people come each time and clear everything there! People discover their favourite varieties through the season and come back the next year for more.

Picking is done using long-handled picking baskets which are telescopic and can reach up to 4m. Apples are stored in a corner of a garage using cardboard fruit boxes from the local supermarket, these stack up easily and don't take much room.

Apples are picked when they are ripe but how can you tell? Knowing what variety the apple is really helps, but even if you don't know, then wait until the apples start to drop a lot - not just the small and rotten ones. When ripe the apples will break off easily when you twist them gently, the pips will be brown and the apples will taste good without the taste of unripe starchiness. Trees can be picked over several weeks, the apples at the top of the tree and facing south will ripen first; trees in more sheltered gardens will also ripen before those same varieties in more exposed positions. This means that the same variety can be picked and available over several weeks. Apples will get larger the longer they stay on the tree, so pick big apples first and leave the smaller apples to get bigger over the next two weeks. If it is hard to pick the apples using the long-handled picking basket that tells you the apples aren't ready yet, however, picking some varieties early by hand extends the season and usefulness, e.g., early James Grieves are good for cooking.

People take apples for eating fresh, cooking, storing as whole apples or freezing cooked. Early apple varieties don't store well and need eating or cooking straight away but varieties that ripen in October will store for several months, keep them in the salad draw in your fridge or in a cold garage - perforated plastic bags are good to stop russets shrivelling. Once you know what apple variety you have, then you will be able to find out how long you can store them.

Apples are classified as eaters, cookers and some dual purpose, but it isn't that simple. Basically, eat raw anything you enjoy raw - the large Howgate Wonder looks like a cooker but is lovely and sweet and is great eaten raw (share it with the family) but loses its flavour when cooked, and a Bramley stored until March can then be sweet enough to enjoy raw. Different recipes call for different types of apples: Tarte Tatin need the apples to keep their shape - so do what the French do and use strong flavoured eaters like Reinette du Canada or Cox's Orange Pippin; whereas apple sauce needs the apples to collapse to a fluff - so use a Bramley; apple crumble and apple chutney are both good with a mixture of eaters and cookers to get some texture. For inspiration about apples and lots of recipes for savoury dishes as well as puddings, then Common Ground's The Apple Source Book is highly recommended. This classic published in 2007, has recipes from well-known chefs who recommend apple varieties with particular cooking qualities specifically for each recipe.

60 gallons of Crop Share Gold cider are made from windfall apples and this is given to various local festivals to raise money: Charlbury Beer Festival, Riverside Festival, and Wychwood Forest Fair

Prior to pressing for cider, the windfall apples get pulped using a centrifugal mill, a few apples go a long way - 201b apples produce 1 gallon juice/cider, this equipment is a local resouce which gets lent out to other groups. We only juice windfall apples for fermenting into cider, IF we were to juice apples for drinking fresh they would have to have been picked and be "good enough for eating", SO we'd rather EAT THEM.

Poor quality windfalls and residue pulp go to local farm animals, particularly pigs - traditionally this was the way to convert apples (and food scraps) into pork, apples from the garden were easily fed to the household pig.

Late windfalls apples are also given to people to feed the birds during the winter - as the temperature drops they keep well - and the blackbirds, thrushes, redwings and fieldfares love them.

For help in identifying apple varieties then Rosie Sanders' The Apple Book can't be beaten, from the brilliant watercolours to the more in depth key features for each variety. The online site FruitID is also very useful for a wide range of photographs. Wait until the apple is ripe and ready to pick before trying to identify it, then all the key chacteristics will fall into place - when they are overripe the colours can change and many apples look similar.

15/04/20 -10 pioneer-era apple types thought extinct found in US West A team of retirees that scours the remote ravines and windswept plains of the Pacific Northwest for long-forgotten pioneer orchards has rediscovered 10 apple varieties that were believed to be extinct — the largest number ever unearthed in a single season by the nonprofit Lost Apple Project.

20/10/17 - Every Apple You Eat Took Years and Years to Make An insight into how apples are bred.

07/11/16 - RADIO: Book of the Week: The Apple Orchard written and read by Pete Brown.

15/10/16 - Golden oldies: how we saved our heritage apples Once they fruited again Jardine took to visiting horticultural shows across the country with a basket of fruit tucked under her arm in an attempt to name them. She also took scion wood from locally endangered trees and grafted them on to rootstocks in order to preserve them.

09/10/16 - RADIO: Food Programme: The Apple: How British a Fruit? (28 mins) As apple fairs and celebrations are held all around the country, Sheila Dillon travels to an orchard in Devon for a conversation with drinks writer Pete Brown, who has just written a book about his two-year journey into all things apple: 'The Apple Orchard'. Sheila and Pete are joined at Otter Farm by its owner - food grower and writer Mark Diacono. From the Hoary Morning to the Bramley's Seedling to the Old Somerset Russet, from Kazakhstan to Paganism to the Garden of Eden - this is a celebration of a fruit with an incredible story to tell and with a unique place both in Britain, and the world.

16/09/06 - Good enough to eat Genuinely tasty apples are hard to find in supermarkets - but not if you eat apples from our gardens. George Monbiot picks his favourite varieties.

NEWS FLASH: Big Apple Take-Aways used to be held in Charlbury on the Playing Close at 2.30pm fortnightly starting the last Sunday afternoon in August and continuing every other Sunday afternoon through September, October and into November. Due to social distancing required to protect ourselves from covid-19, we are no longer able to hold the Big Apple Take-Aways BUT THE GOOD NEWS is that all the fruit is available soon after being picked at The Cornerstone, Charlbury's new community hub at The Corner House. So if you live locally then please do pop-in for lovely local fresh fruit - and it's all free. A huge thank you to all the fruit tree owners who offer us their spare fruit - this amazingly successful venture wouldn't be possible without your generousity.

"I've started eating and cooking with apples again after years of not being interested in them based on the fruit available in multi-bags (even organic) from supermarkets. Thank you for providing this wonderful community service." Karen, November 2017

Charlbury Crop Share has been doing this since 2008. Fruit is highly dependent on the weather at blossom time, late frosts and hailstorms can damage the blossom and cold rain can deter flying pollinating insects. So some years are "good" or "bad" for plums, pears or apples, and a single event can wipe out a particular variety locally. In 2014 there was a late frost on 3 May and there were hardly any Worcesters or Bramleys around Charlbury, in 2013 a heavy hailstorm knocked off all the Bramley blossom. As the trees get older, some varieties start to produce apples every other year, the local Bismarck trees are highly productive but have become biennial (and in synch!) so we last had Bismarck apples in 2019 and won't have them again until 2021. Locally, 2020 is proving to be a great year for apples, pears and plums.

Our virtual community orchard (approx 8 miles radius around Charlbury) includes these 65 apple varieties (listed in order of season for eating at their best, and information about their recorded origins). We have access to trees in a range of places, small gardens attached to houses and pubs as well as larger orchards - an old Victorian orchard where we are still trying to identify the varieties as well as a modern orchard planted up with old varieties (mostly with labels) sourced from Brogdale (home of the National Fruit Collection). Fast forward a few years to the cropping of the new orchard at Southill Solar and we'll be able to enjoy more of some of our favourites, discover another 24, AND widen the palate of Sharecroppes Gold cider with the 11 varieties of cider apples planted. . . . . So wherever you live, hunt around and talk to people about old trees, who knows what apple varieties might you find on your own local patch?

Emneth Early (1899, Emneth near Wisbech - Lord Grosvenor x Keswick Codlin)
Beauty of Bath (1864, Bath)
George Cave (1923, Essex)
Discovery (1949, Essex - Worcester Pearmain x Beauty of Bath)
Miller's Seedling (1848, Newbury)
Devonshire Quarrenden (1678, Devon)
Grenadier (cooker, 1800, Buckinghamshire)
Laxton's Epicure (1909, Bedford - Wealthy x Cox's Orange Pippin)
Owen Thomas (1897, Bedford)
Scrumptious (1980, Kent - Golden Delicious x Discovery)
Katy (1947, Sweden - James Grieve x Worcester Pearmain)
Worcester Pearmain (1874, Worcester - seedling from Devonshire Quarrenden)
Reverend W Wilks (cooker/eater, 1904, Chelsea - Peasgood Nonsuch x Ribston Pippin)
Merton Worcester (1914, John Innes Institute - Cox's Orange Pippin x Worcester Pearmain)
James Grieve (1893, Edinburgh - seedling from Pott's Seedling or Cox's Orange Pippin)
Merton Charm (1933, John Innes Institute - McIntosh Red x Cox's Orange Pippin)
Laxton's Fortune (1931, Bedford - Cox's Orange Pippin x Wealthy)
Gloria Mundi (cooker, 1804, USA)
Ellison's Orange (1904, Lincolnshire - Cox's Orange Pippin x Calville Blanc)
Keswick Codlin (cooker, 1790, Gleaston Castle, Lancashire)
Arthur Turner (cooker, 1912, Slough)
St Edmund's Pippin (1870, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk - chance seedling)
Lord Lambourne (1907, Bedford - James Grieve x Worcester Pearmain)
Herring's Pippin (cooker/eater, 1908, Lincoln)
Wealthy (1860, Minnesota, USA - seed from Cherry Crab)
Greensleeves (1966, East Malling, Kent - James Grieve x Golden Delicious)
Gravenstein (cooker/eater, 1600s Germany)
Bountiful (cooker, 1960s, East Malling, Kent - Cox's Orange Pippin x Lane's Prince Albert)
Mother (1844, Massachusetts, USA)
Jester (1966, East Malling, Kent - Worcester Pearmain x Starkspur Golden Delicious)
Egremont Russet (1872, England)
King of the Pippins (early 1800s, Brompton, London)
Charles Ross (cooker/eater, 1890, Derbyshire - Peasgood Nonsuch x Cox's Orange Pippin)
Cox's Pomona (cooker/eater, 1825, Slough - Ribston Pippin x possibly Blenheim Orange)
Flower of Kent (cooker, pre-1650, Kent)
Lord Stradbroke (cooker, 1900, Henham Hall, Wangford, Suffolk)
Lord Derby (cooker, 1862, Cheshire)
McIntosh Red (1796, Ontario, Canada)
Allington Pippin (1884, Lincolnshire)
Sunset (1933, Kent - seedling from Cox's Orange Pippin)
Golden Noble (cooker, 1820, Norfolk)
Falstaff (1965, East Malling, Kent - James Grieve x Golden Delicious)
Herefordshire Beefing (cooker, 1700s, Hereford)
Ribston Pippin (1688, Ribston Hall, Yorkshire)
Royal Gala (1970s, Wairarapa, New Zealand - Kidd's Orange Red x Golden Delicious)
Gascoyne's Scarlet (cooker/eater 1871, Kent)
Herefordshire Russet (2000, England - Cox's Orange Pippin x Idared)
Margil (1750, Versailles)
Spartan (1926, British Columbia, Canada - McIntosh x Yellow Newtown Pippin)
Laxton's Superb (1897, Bedford - Wyken Pippin x Cox's Orange Pippin)
Cox's Orange Pippin (1825, Slough - seedling from Ribston Pippin)
Howgate Wonder (large apple best as a shared eater, 1915, Isle of Wight)
Suntan (1955, East Malling, Kent - Cox's Orange Pippin x Court Pendu Plat)
Kidd's Orange Red (1924, Wairarapa, New Zealand - Cox's Orange Pippin x Delicious)
Blenheim Orange (cooker/eater, 1740, Woodstock, Oxfordshire)
Jonagold (1943, New York State, USA - Golden Delicious x Jonathan)
Orleans Reinette (1776, France)
Lady Henniker (cooker, 1840, Suffolk)
Jupiter (1966, East Malling, Kent - Cox's Orange Pippin x Starking)
Golden Delicious (1890, West Virginia, USA - Grimes Golden x ??)
Bismarck (cooker, 1870s, Australia)
Newton Wonder (cooker, 1887, Derbyshire - Dumelow's Seedling x Blenheim Orange)
Bramley's Seedling (cooker, 1809 but introduced 1876, Nottinghamshire)
Crimson Bramley (cooker, 1913, Nottinghamshire - sport found growing on a Bramley's Seedling)
Dumelow's Seedling (late 1700s, Leicestershire - possibly from a Northern Greening)
Rosemary Russet (1831, UK origin unknown)
Idared (1935, Idaho, USA - Jonathan x Wagener)
Holstein (1918, Germany - seedling from Cox's Orange Pippin)
William Crump (1908, Malvern - Cox's Orange Pippin x Worcester Pearmain)
Crispin (1937, Japan - Golden Delicious x Indo)
Ashmead's Kernel (1700, Gloucestershire)
Brownlee's Russet (1848, Hemel Hempstead)
King's Acre Pippin (1897, Hereford - Sturmer Pippin x Ribston Pippin)
Calville Blanc d'Hiver (cooker, 1500s, France)
Lane's Prince Albert (cooker, 1840, Berkhamsted - Russet Nonpareil x Dumelow's Seedling)
Golden Knob (18th century, Somerset)
Royal Russet/Leathercoat/Reinette Grise du Canada (1567, England)
Tydeman's Late Orange (1930, East Malling, Kent - Laxton Superb x Cox's Orange Pippin)
Belle de Boskoop (cooker/eater, 1856, Boskoop, Holland - bud sport of Reinette de Montford)
Broad-Eyed Pippin (cooker, late 1600s, England)
D'Arcy Spice (1785, Colchester, Essex)
Reinette du Canada (18th century, France)
Winston (1920, Berkshire - Cox's Orange Pippin x Worcester Pearmain)
Annie Elizabeth (cooker, 1857, Leicester - Seedling from Blenheim Orange)
Lord Burghley (dessert, 1834, Stamford, Northamptonshire)
Sturmer Pippin (1827, Sturmer, Suffolk - Ribston Pippin x Nonpareil)