Parke’s apple day

Yesterday was Parke’s Apple Day which we ran in partnership with Dartmoor Pony Heritage Trust, Home Farm Cafe and Hunt’s Cider. Here are a few photos from the day (I didn’t stay long as I was thick with a cold ….)

Apples on the trees

Bagged and ready for scratting

Alternative way to transport apples – its thirsty work though

Scratting – breaking up the whole apples before they are pressed

The press containing the scripted apples – Fred, Phil and AJ on the case

Apple juice straight from the apple!

Tom – the chef from Home Farm Cafe serving the excellent pasties he made earlier

Hunt’s Cider – who we hope will be making cider from our apples this year!

Parke’s summer harvest

The Walled Garden at Parke is currently looking amazing – the fruits and many of the vegetables are coming up and are ready for harvest. Once ready all the fruit will be one sale at Parke (first come first served!) or will go to Parke’s Home Farm Cafe.

Grapes – both white and red varieties have done well this year. We will be juicing them on Apple Day later in the year – maybe wine in the future!
NB – these are the red grapes – the white ones on this bunch will turn red soon.

Don’t these apples look good?

Same goes for the pears

I just want to pick this loganberry straight off the page!

The figs are half way there – give them a month and they will be ready too

Tomatoes in the polytunnel

Hmmm – is this a marrow or a pumpkin? I suspect the latter.

Spring blossom, buds and chard!

With spring comes all the blossom – it is interesting to think why blossom is almost universally white or at least a pinky white when so many of the non tree flowers are yellow. The reason must be that both colours are attractive to pollinating insects.

Here are the distinctive flowers of the blackthorn

An apple tree flowering in the Walled Garden at Parke

The vines are Parke are also slowly coming to life

Leaves and buds beginning to emerge

And finally the chard! What a beautiful flash of colour! What a disappointing tasting salad!

 

Pressing apples at Parke

One of our volunteers Mark has been working for months restoring / creating an apple press and a scratter  (which crushes apples before they go in the press) at Parke. Well, after all the hard work they are finished and they work!

Here is the apple press

Mark cleaning the scratter before crushing the apples

The crushing cogs

Scratting!

Scratted apples!

Into the press

Pressing (some time later)

The apple juice!

Brilliant! This single pressing produced around 30 litres of juice.

Thanks Mark for all your hard work – a craftsman and a gentleman.