The Orchard of Berkeley Vale

 

                

  Can you plant a rare  apple tree in your garden?

This winter, Stroud Valleys Project is offering twenty five apple trees, to people in the Berkeley and Sharpness area.

There will be five local varieties of apple: Ashmeads Kernel, Fon's Spring, Gloucestershire Underleaf,  Lake's Kernel, Rheads Reinette.  

These Gloucestershire varieties are getting rarer, so planting them helps preserve this unique heritage, as well as supplying delicious local fruit.

Planting and caring for an apple tree is a bit of  a commitment but it is very satisfying to watch it flower, grow and finally give fruit. It helps the wider environment too, from insects to birds, as well as the climate.

The young trees will need watering in dry weather, and other care for which guidance can be supplied.

This orchard scheme, facilitated by Stroud Valleys Project, is offering the trees, for a £10 donation towards the costs, so that we can continue our work. An aluminium label will also be available (for £5) with the name of the variety on it, for long term identification. We ask that the planter keeps in touch with us, to build a network of gloucestershire apples: a virtual orchard !  We hope to offer support in the care, workshops in pruning for example.

It follows the creation of a small orchard at Sarahs Field community meadow, planted in 2018, on Lynch Road, Berkeley. There were once many orchards in the area, including James Orchard, in Berkeley.

These heritage fruit trees are being supplied by Lodge Farm Trees, at Rockhampton who specialise in Gloucestershire fruit varieties, in partnership with the Gloucestershire Orchard Trust. Three of these varieties are very rare: Fon's spring, Rhead's reinette, and Gloucestershire underleaf.

The trees are semi-vigorous: on MM106 rootstock which has a final maximum  

height of 4 -5 m ( 12 – 15 feet) and width: 4m (12 feet). They can be kept pruned to a smaller size of course.

If you would like to participate, then please get in touch by e-mail: 

fred@stroudvalleysproject.org

You will need to have enough space for the tree, in your garden,

 or on land you manage or own.

- Collect it from Sarahs Field, in Berkeley, on 21 January, 11 - 3 pm. (If you cannot make it that day, alternative arrangements can be made).

- Plant it, allowing for the space it will need to grow.

- Water it with bucket loads (!) if there is a heat wave in the first 2 or 3 years.

- Remove any fruit in the first 2 or 3 years to enable it to grow better.

- From then, allow the fruit to ripen .

- Prune it in the first two years, to form a good ‘goblet’ shape (a pruning workshop will be arranged at Sarah's Field).

- Specify your preferred variety from the list below.

There are only 5x each variety, so please give your 1^st, 2^nd and 3 rd choice :

The apple trees: (see below for further details )

1. Ashmeads Kernel

2. Fon's Spring 

3. Gloucestershire Underleaf 

4. Lake's Kernel 

5. Rheads Reinette 

Collect your tree from Sarah’s Field, Lynch Rd, Berkeley, on Sat 21 January at the Community Tree Day 11 – 3 pm

 

 

Descriptions of the apple varieties

Information and photos reproduced with permission from

the publication by Charles Martell (2013) :    ‘Native Apples of Gloucestershire’

    Volume 3 of the Gloucestershire Pomona series
        ISBN: 978-0-9927394-0-9

        Part of the Gloucestershire Pomona Series, published by the Gloucestershire Orchard Trust and             Hartpury Heritage Trust, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

 Apple information is also here:

Gloucestershire Orchard Trust web site: 

 https://glosorchards.org/home/

https://glosorchards.org/home/fruitvarieties/gloucestershire-apples-listing/

1. Ashmead’s Kernel - eater

 

 

 

An excellent dessert apple. Gloucestershire’s most famous apple started in 1700 but not recognised much outside the county for nearly 300 years after its birth. Russet (rough and dry skin)

Not endangered

Dessert

Gloucester

Probably raised by a Dr Ashmead ( a lawyer not a physician !) , or it possibly was already in his garden in the early 1700’s and he got the credit for it !

This garden was in Gloucester (in what is now Clarence street)

The variety was probably a seedling of the Nonpareil.

Raised about 1700

Original tree still in existence in 1800.

In 1981 it was awarded a first class certificate by the royal horticultrual society, after nearly 300 years

2. Fon's Spring - Eater

Dessert

Status: Probably very rare because only distinguished from Eden, in 2002.

Introduced 1957, raised near Thornbury 1948

A cross between John Standish and Cox’s orange pippin.

A sister to a seedling variety called Eden, and only distinguished from this in 2002.

Skin:

- Pale green, yellowing;

- Dull flush covering 50% or more; with interspersed indistinct slightly darker stripes;

- Lenticels distinct angular, russeted; paler on flushed parts.

Lenticels are pores in the skin to allow the passage of gases. 

 The name Fons, is an acronym of  Forest and Orchard Nurseries at Lower Morton.

This was pointed out by Roger Payne whose father worked there before WW2.

 

3.  Gloucestershire Underleaf  -  general purpose: 

eaten fresh, cooked or for cider

 Also known as yellow underleaf.

A well known and much loved variety throughout Gloucestershire.

  Previously widespread, general purpose variety.

 It can be eaten fresh, cooked or made into cider.

 Curiously in the 1880s it was hardly known.

Status: Critical , meaning it is so rare that it could be lost.

Use: General purpose

Provenance: Gloucester

First recorded 1883. Collection for propagation in 1993 from an old tree growing at Tawnies Farm , Oxenhall 1992.

The skin is yellow, greener towards top and bottom

A well known and much loved variety throughout Gloucestershire where people still speak with affection for this apple which they could eat, cook and make into cider. There are a number of sub varieties of Underleaf which may mean it is older than indicated by the dates above. It is probably the best known general purpose variety in Glocs. It is undecided why it has the name underleaf; due, either to the fruit being under the leaf, or the leaf under the fruit ?

4. Lake's Kernel  - eater

 

Also known as:

- Ashleworth,

- Prince’s Pippin

- Princess Pippin

Found growing in Ashleworth 2001.

Brought to Ashleworth by Mr Lake, a blacksmith.

First exhibited in 1905

Flesh: Firm, fine, pale cream, flavour sub acid

Use: Dessert

Status: probably not endangered

It is still known in Ashleworth (2001)

Descendants of Mr Lake still live near the village

A really nice dessert variety.Thought to have been first grown by Bill Lake of Hartpury, a blacksmith, now deceased. He had a blacksmiths shop opposite the Royal Exchange public house.  Descendants of Mr Lake still live in the neighbourhood of Ashleworth to-day (2000).

 

5. Rhead's Reinette - eater

 

Thinly russeted skin.     (Russet = a rough and dry skin) ;
A dessert apple similar to a Cox

Status: Critically rare. But never widespread

Comes from: Minsterworth

Raised from seed by William Rhead (1852 – 1955) at either Elton Farm, Elton, or Peglars Farm, Flaxley.

Date is uncertain.

A reinette is thinly russeted; a kind of ‘net’ of russetness.

Use: dessert

Flesh: slightly yellow, juicy, excellent flavour like a Cox’s orange pippin.

This variety was kept going by by William Rhead’s grand-daighter, Peggy Wellington at her Cyprus Cottage, Minsterworth after being grafted for her by her husband, Bob a well known fruit man, and source of local fruit history information.

This is thought to be a seedling of Cox’s orange pippin.

Summary of planting for bare rooted trees

1. Keep the tree frost-free before planting (the roots are damaged by frost).

    Store it with the roots wrapped in a plastic sack - as they are also damaged by         drying out.

     Plant as soon as possible after getting it,

  -   in good soil, (the natural soil in this area is an excellent clay loam.)

-  in a spot not prone to flooding, ideally !   

2. Dig a square hole bigger than the size of roots.

3. A stake is recommended (and will be supplied) tied at one third of the tree's height.  A strong bamboo cane is sufficient. Drive it into the bottom of hole, or to one side, for a slanting stake. Remove the stake after a year, when the tree's roots will be sufficient.

4. Place some compost or good soil in a small mound in the bottom of the hole.

5. Place tree in hole, so that the grafting union is above the ground, and roots are all in the ground.

6. Place soil around roots so they are partly covered.

7. Shake tree gently to get soil between roots (you do not want air gaps).

8. Place more soil in the hole checking the tree’s level as you go, firming the soil as you go, with hands and then with foot.

9. Make sure tree is vertical, at right level, and correct position in relation to the stake.

10. Only then, do the final firming of soil with foot.

11. Tie tree to stake.

12. Mulch around the tree to suppress weeds, and retain moisture.

13. Water in dry hot weather, expecially in the first couple of years.

HISTORY AND FUTURE

Berkeley and Sharpness once had many orchards around them supplying all the fruits for the area. Many farms had an orchard, and made their own cider for workers. The landscape produced a variety of food through mixed farming.

Orchard trees support wildlife; flowers and fruit are food for insects and birds. Dead wood and holes are good for woodpeckers, bats, fungi and beetles. The grassland under the trees supports insects, voles, ants and woodpeckers.