Once we decided to juice our plentiful supply of apples we thought we would try a press. Luckily our local Environmental Society, Wildsight, has a juicer for public use. We booked it, collected it from the Community Garden and brought it home for the day.

The grandchildren and friends, at that time, had a wonderful afternoon learning the basic skills of juice making while dodging wasps in what was, a bad year. The apples were picked, washed and any wormy or damaged fruit discarded. The apple press came with a separate chopper, which made this part of the job relatively easy. Once a sizeable amount of fruit had been prepared, washed and chopped, it was put into the press and the handle turned to compress. The kids especially had fun with this part of the process. Once the juice began to flow everyone was ready to taste. Everyone agreed, nothing purchased in a container that has been sitting on a shelf for an unknown amount of time compared to the fresh juice we made that day. It was so good, as is all the juice we, (mostly my husband), continue to make. The juice was strained into a clean bucket through clean cloth and then put into containers using a funnel. The leftover mash would be a wonderful treat for pigs but it is also a great addition to our compost.

The downside of juicing with a press is that unless you own a press, all the apples need to be processed at one time. With the success of that first juicing day, we decided to purchase a good quality juicer. This way apples can be processed in smaller batches, when they are ready. My husband now sets up temporary nets under the trees, rather like an Italian olive grove. This way not so many apples are damaged and as we have dogs, we don’t wish to use the fruit that falls to the ground.  The juice is not pasteurized. We also pick with our long pole apple basket but many apples just fall into the net when they are ready.

All this juice lasts us for a year and some of it goes to our children and grandchildren. It is deliciously refreshing, sweet and full of nutrients. Then there is also the possibility of some cider making!

There are now several varieties of apple trees that will do well in our zone but best do your your own research to decide which one might suit. We do have an espalier Macintosh. It produces a few apples each year but being limited in growth and in a poor location its crops are not brilliant. A previous neighbour had great success with theirs. As we have maxed out our room for apple trees I cannot speak to new varieties in this area. Good old Haralson and Harcourt have been reliable varieties for us.

It is interesting that we built our house in the location of an old orchard and I often wonder what variety was grown almost a century ago.