This week’s veg news (and this Sunday 18th October in the shop!) is our annual celebration of apples.
Since the shop opened 30 years ago, we’ve been huge supporters of Apple Day, which was founded by Common Ground in 1990 to establish an annual autumn celebration of apples. From the beginning, it was about much more than the apples themselves, celebrating and championing the varieties we risk losing, alongside the wider richness and diversity of our landscapes, ecology and culture. Apple Day has also played an important role in raising awareness of where our food comes from and the importance of its provenance and traceability.
We’ve long been huge fans of Common Ground’s work to champion this diversity, and were so inspired that we adopted the apple as our logo many years ago!
Although we mention it each year, Apple Day is a reminder of how much diversity we risk losing. Supermarket shelves are often dominated by a handful of varieties, with apples imported from the southern hemisphere even at the height of the UK apple season. As a result, many of our wonderful heritage varieties, along with the knowledge and appreciation that surround them, have become less familiar over the years.
This week, we have a wonderful selection of apples in the shop from orchards we’ve worked closely with for years. Do come along this Sunday and try lots of different varieties with us! We’ll be sampling and chatting about all things apple all day.
From Paul Ward and the team at Mole End Farm in Kent, we’ll be receiving Cox’s Orange Pippin, Blaze, Gala and Spartan, with Blaze definitely a staff favourite! We’ll also have some experimental apples from this pioneering orchard, including some so new that they’re still waiting for names. Suggestions would be very welcome on Sunday! These varieties are carefully selected to suit the orchard’s growing conditions and produce the best possible flavours for the local climate.
Martin and Rachel Soble and the team at Carey Organics in Herefordshire will be sending us their Red Devils, Falstaff, Pirouette and Gala. We’re also super excited about their Herefordshire Russets and Pitmaston Pineapples, two more firm staff favourites!
And we’re particularly excited to welcome our first delivery from Margaret and Gavin Cherry and the team at biodynamic farm Sweet Apple Orchards in Stowmarket this week, with the first of their Jonagolds, Spartans, Cox apples and Conference pears arriving soon.
Last but not least, a special mention for the wonderful Saturn, Topaz and Grenadier and Lord Derby cooking apples we’ve been receiving recently from the team at Kindling Farm!
These apples are grown just 15 miles away, on land owned by Unicorn in Glazebury, Leigh, which Kindling Farm has rented since 2021 as a fruit tree nursery. Around 1,500 apple, plum and pear trees have been grafted and grown on at the nursery, before going on to form part of the agroforestry system at Kindling Farm in Knowsley in Merseyside. Since purchasing the farm in 2023, the team has been planting rows of fruit trees to divide the field-grown vegetable blocks in their pioneering agroforestry farming system.
Hopefully see you Sunday! 
