A chance discovery of bright yellow apples hanging on a bare tree in midwinter sparked a lifelong pursuit to record and preserve these unusual varieties.
The straggly little specimen by the side of a roundabout was a Worcester Round, and a scion from this tree marked the start of the Long Keeping Apples1 project.
It was set up by an individual in Wales with a passion for collecting and experimenting with UK apples. What started five years ago with one scion has now grown into two orchards spanning an acre of land, containing nearly 300 different varieties of long keeping apples. That’s literally a lot of hard graft!
I had the pleasure of listening to him speak about his passion and how it all began at an orchard event in Yorkshire earlier this year. I knew other orchardists would be equally fascinated by this story, which is why I am sharing it here.
However, although I have his blessing to do so, this modern-day Johnny Appleseed2 wishes to remain anonymous. He doesn’t sell any of the trees he grafts (but does sometimes give away scions) and is not out to make a profit from this venture; he’s entirely driven by a desire to preserve this important part of our apple tree heritage for generations to come.
And why is preserving these varieties so important? Most apples bought in supermarkets have been picked several months before, sprayed by chemicals, refrigerated and potentially shipped long distance. Their main aim is to travel well and still look attractive, which can often be at the expense of taste and texture.
“There are numerous apple varieties (both heirloom, commercial and newly discovered) that are long keeping, extremely tasty and disease resistant. It is possible to have your own apples available well into the spring and, since you grow them yourself, you do not have to use chemicals.” – from the Long Keeping Apples website.
As well as growing your own long keeping apples, you can be part of this inspirational project by reporting any sightings of UK apples still on the tree in the winter months. Apparently, he’s been known to drop everything to travel hundreds of miles to collect a specimen from the side of a road! You can email any sightings via the website (check out the criteria for submitting first) with a grid reference or What3Words location.
Identifying the varieties he finds has often been difficult, but he has been aided by visiting the national collection at Brogdale.
One of the most interesting aspects of his work has been exploring the many varied ‘foundling’3 trees, often found alongside busy roads, where people have thrown apple cores from vehicles. Very few germinate and even less thrive and produce apples, so those that do succeed have to be robust. If they are susceptible to any pests or diseases, then they simply won’t make it.
These foundlings form the basis of his ongoing research; combining them with heritage varieties to create the ultimate new apple: one which is tasty, robust and can be picked from the tree in January, or even later.
And his favourite late keeping apple? Lady Williams – related to Pink Lady. Unfortunately it doesn’t ripen well in most of the UK, but if you have a walled garden in a sunny spot, it’s worth a try! For a full list of all the apples discovered so far and more information about the project visit: www.longkeepingapples.com
Photos 1&2 are Auralia and Elstar apples.
Notes:
- Long keeping apples are those that will remain on the tree through the winter months, or which store well into the spring under cool, but non-refrigerated conditions. ↩︎
- Johnny Appleseed was an American folk hero and real-life professional orchardist and nurseryman in the 1800s.
His real name was John Chapman, born in Massachusetts. He travelled on foot for thousands of miles, setting up apple orchards on frontier lands, as well as trading medicinal herb plants with the indigenous people.
His orchards would be left for several years and then he would return to sell the trees. But they weren’t the kind of apples that would feed the nearby communities – they were destined for distilleries to produce cider, which interestingly is often left out of the re-telling of this tale today! ↩︎ - A foundling apple is the Long Keeping Apples website label for a variety which was not purposely bred, but discovered and the result of a random cross between two unknown parent apples.
Many of our much-loved heirloom apple trees originated this way. The inclusion of the word “pippin” in the name of an apple variety historically indicated that the variety was simply an interesting apple that somebody spotted and decided to propagate. ↩︎