Apples coming into blossom


“the apple of my eye” to mean someone much loved. They were seen as a good food to combat sickness, and are an excel- lent digestible source of vita- mins. “Comfort me with apples,” says the Song of Solomon, “for I am sick of love.” Cider was the everyday drink of men, women and children in country areas, as late as my child- hood (the children on the next farm had free access to the barrel!). Around here it was very common, but now we have only one cider-maker left at Tardebigge. Orchard apples have some won-


derful old varieties with a great di- versity of flavour and curious names: Bedfordshire Foundling, Bloody Ploughman, Dog’s Snout, English Fox- whelp, Peasgood’s Nonsuch, Annie Elizabeth (my grandmother’s names!) and of course our local Worcester Pearmain. They include cider apples, cooking apples and dessert apples which range from the very early ones that don’t keep to the later ones that keep well. Even some of the varieties I re-


Bramble – like a small rose


member from my youth are rarer now – the early Beauty of Bath and green, sharp Granny Smith, for example. Modern stand- ardised varie- ties like Golden Delicious and Braeburn have driven them out. There are still some surviving in people’s


gardens (including mine!) and old orchards (like the ones


at Tardebigge Lime Kilns) but there is no protection for them. You can put a preservation order on an oak or ash, but not on an ancient apple orchard, which is seen as just a commercial crop. Wildings and hedge- plantings have helped preserve some of the old varieties when the orchards were destroyed in the 1970s. Orchards


Crab apple


blossom


were good for wildlife. As well as the blossom feeding bees, the ground beneath was often left to old grasses and wild flowers,


excellent for butterflies. You can find some echoes of this in places like the Old Orchard between Barnt Green and Blackwell, which has uncommon wildflowers like betony as well as spring bluebells. Apples are from the rose family, the


most wonderful edible plant family we have, and so are brambles. But while we love apples, most of us hate brambles and cut them down when- ever possible. This is a shame as they are a vital element of our biodiversity. (Mind you, they are so successful that even I take some of the bigger ones out from my garden!) They grow everywhere, even under trees as they can climb to the light, and are full of nectar-rich flowers feeding insects for a long period (much better than the short-lived native roses, though the flowers are actually very similar) and then of berries which feed birds through the autumn. You can eat the very young shoots, too. I find it hard


to understand


how people can continues overleaf


The Village September 2018 55


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