Tag: apple trees

This time of year, the orchards around Kent are bursting with beautiful apples of all shapes, sizes, tastes and colours. Brogdale is home to the National Fruit Collections. With 2,200 varieties of apples, it is the largest collection in the world. But did you ever wonder where this delicious fruit we all take so for granted came from?

Where did apples originally come from?

Nikolai Vavilov was a Russian scientist who, in 1929, first worked out the apple genome. This revealed that the ancestor of most of our apple trees was the ‘Malus Sieversii’.

This is a wild apple originating from Kazakhstan many, many thousands of years ago. Kazakhstan was renowned for its ‘apple forests’ on the Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan China border in particular the Tien Shan “Mountains of Heaven”. At the heart of this area is the Almaty region of Kazakhstan, whose former capital Alma Ata translates to “Father of Apples” This is where the apples we now enjoy originally came from.

How did apples arrive in England?

Like many things, we have the Romans to thank for bringing apples to these shores. It’s hard to imagine Britain without orchards and apples, but that was the case before Roman times. The Romans discovered apples in Syria and played an important role in transporting them using the Silk Road to the rest of their Empire.

About grafting

At Grow, we take our hats off to the Romans who were expert grafters. This is the technique we use to grow our own apple trees – using stock from the National Fruit Collections at Brogdale. Grafting is necessary as apple trees grown from seed will have completely different DNA than their parent tree. This can make them look and taste very different from the original tree.

Grafting is the process where you fuse the variety (by taking a piece of graftwood from the parent tree) onto the rootstock. There are many delicious apples named as “pippins” grown from the pip and often delicious by happy coincidence!

It’s incredible that the Romans were so expert at this process. This enabled them to develop the extensive range of tasty apples – many of which we enjoy in Britain today.

More information

For more information about grafting and rootstocks, take a look at our earlier blog here.

To find out which apple trees are currently available from Grow at Brogdale, check out our shop here.

Kent is home to some fabulous cider producers, many made from local apples. Here’s a low down on the best apples for making cider.

Background to cider making

Kent being the garden of England is now gaining quite a reputation for some incredible hand crafted, artisan Kentish ciders including Brogdale’s own Woolly Pig!

Differing from traditional scrumpy, Kentish cider is usually predominately made from cooking and dessert varieties. So you can have the best of both worlds – fruit trees for the family, with enough to have a dabble in making your own cider!

Traditionally made from windfalls, friends and family would gather to press and create their own unique blend, which would change from season to season depending on what had been gifted from whom!

Many Kentish Ciders feature a blend of heritage, varieties. Woolly pig features no less than 30 varieties from the orchards of Brogdale.

Grown your own trees for cider apples

If you have room to grow a small number of trees, try Bramley, Discovery, Grenadier, Howgate Wonder and a Russet, all reliable croppers that will produce a delicious blend.

Other varieties to consider are Braeburn, Cox, Golden Delicious, Golden Noble, Greensleeves, Grenadier, James Grieve, Katy, Spartan and Worcester Pearmain. All of which will press beautifully for juice so the kids do not miss out. That is of course, if you can resist eating all of the apples as they are ready!

For more information

Check out our website for current apple tree availability.

If you fancy learning how to make your own cider, Brogdale Collections here at Brogdale is holding Cider Making Workshops in October. More details here.

If you can’t wait that long, then buy some delicious Woolly Pig Cider from Tiddly Pomme! It makes its wonderful Woolly Pig Cider from Brogdale apples. More information here.