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Archive for September, 2013

Cox now…

Monday, September 30th, 2013

After a busy couple of weeks flat-out on Bramley, most of our growers are now busy picking Cox for storage. Cox is the doyen of the English dessert apple scene – long-established as a favourite with the buying public. Its traditional form – the Orange Pippin – has been completely superseded in the commercial fruit industry by more modern variants, such as Cox Flanders and Cox La Vera, whose improved storage characteristics allow us to market Cox long into the following year. Despite this, there are still lots of TV chefs who think they’re being clever by referring to Cox’s Orange Pippin…

When picked for storage, they are under-ripe for eating, and quite hard and sharp, but they store really nicely, and will ripen in the usual way when released again in the new year.

Here’s Sande happy in her work in the Jubilee orchard!

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Bramley harvest underway

Wednesday, September 11th, 2013

We’ve been picking Bramley on and off for a couple of weeks now, mainly for the wholesale markets and catering trade, but today Mid Kent Growers swung into action across the county, picking for long-term storage. Here are our Latvian students Jelina and Arturs hard at work at Pivington. As you can see, the picking team wear buckets into which they place the fruit as they take it off the tree.  The buckets have a fabric lining which is folded shut at the bottom. This is undone when the bucket’s full, allowing the apples to be placed gently into the bulk bin without risk of them getting bruised or damaged.

The white hoop on Jelina’s bucket is a gauge to ensure the right size fruit gets picked, and the small stuff stays on the tree to grow a bit bigger.

This fruit will be placed in controlled atmosphere refrigeration until such time as the supermarkets ask for it. This fantastic system is what enables us to supply top quality fresh apples and pears throughout the year, as it effectively puts the fruit into hibernation. Some varieties store better than others, but Bramley is the daddy, and can happily store for a full 12 months if needed, and emerges from storage as good as when it went in!

 

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