Nina's Blog - Sunday 26th October 2025

Sunday 26th October 2025, 20:19

Emptied the apples from the freezer into bins to thaw out. That takes two or three days. Tomorrow I'll go out to the garden and collect more windfalls. I'll try to force myself to fill the freezer all at once rather than spreading it over three days as i did last time.

I weighed the apples. I had guessed at about 30 kg a couple of days ago, it was actually 34 kg. So that's what I'll need to collect tomorrow. If I can be bothered I'll collect more and juice them straightaway instead of freezing them first.

Made a farmhouse cake today. Used a pot of plum jam that no one wanted instead of the sugar.

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meggie · F

Do you freeze your apples from freshly picked?
We stew lots of our bramley apples and freeze. Some we wrap in newspaper and keep in the cellar, but often they can rot. We also gave away lots, and then the wildlife eat lots too.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@meggie Yes, these are all going to be juiced for cider not used for cooking. If I freeze them for later use in the kitchen I prepare them first by coring them and removing any bruised or worm eaten parts. I don't usually both stewing them first.

We get migrating fieldfares in the garden here but they prefer the pears. I have two big pear trees. We sometimes count about a hundred of them gorging themselves on the windfall pears.

I wish I had some Bramleys or Grenadiers, my apples are good but they are very sweet dessert apples. Would be good to have some cider apples too to add a bit of dryness to my cider. But I'm not a very keen gardener to I'll leave the trees as they are. :-)

meggie · F

@ninalanyon i didnt realise you could freeze them without stewing first. We have 2 eating apple trees, 2 bramleys, 2 pears, fig, cherry and victoria plum, a damson and a greengage tree, and both red and green grapes. The cherries and plums we de-stone and freeze without stewing, as we do also with rhubarb. The parakeets and squirrels damage a lot, but we get more than enough to get us through to the next season. However, we move house soon to a smaller place with minimal gardens and no fruit trees. We may rent an apple and plum tree from one of the local orchards each year.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@meggie I'm just too lazy to do it the official way. My cookery books recommend blanching first but I find that they work fine without. If I'm intending to use them for a pie or tart I just peel and core them and chop them roughly then pack them in a plastic bag. The outer layer does suffer a slight freezer burn but once they are stewed for a pie I don't notice any difference.

I have some plum trees but they are so old that they are falling apart and we hardly get any fruit from them. Somewhere in the garden is a blackthorn (sloe), I should go and see if it has any berries.

There were strawberry beds when we moved in but we just levelled those and let the grass grow. We also have some raspberry canes but they fruit in the summer so I missed those.

I didn't know you could rent trees!