Cider Apples

Herefordshire is the home of apples – both for cider fruit and for desert apples. Staff working across the county were often paid some of their wages in Scrumpy which may not have been a particularly good idea for planting in straight lines! Historically orchards have been planted here for generations as the soils are perfect and the gently rolling hills provide the perfect terrain.  At White Heron we mainly grow cider fruit but we also have a small orchard of speciality culinary varieties with which we make our own delicious fresh-pressed apple juice.  We grow some of our varieties for Bulmers Cider in Hereford, and some for Aspalls Cider in Suffolk.  For other parts of the farm go to whole farm, environment, blackcurrants, apples, vineyards, other enterprises and White Heron Drinks.

Planting

We have four different varieties on the estate, which are planted on around 55 acres of sloping prime farmland. Dabinet and Michellin are the classic cider apple varieties but we also have Gilly and Hastings which are early fruiting and help spread the harvest window. Our bush orchards are planted with 1800 trees per acre and relatively closely together which makes all farm operations easier and provides a hedge of sorts for pruning and harvesting. They are planted by hand in straight rows, staked and guarded, with a grass mix in between them and all the headlands have wild flower margins.

Growing

It’s costly growing apples and there’s a lot of work to be done before you get your first crop (wait for Year 5 for anything decent). The first few years are the most important – getting the tree shape right, ongoing pruning (mostly by hand), ensuring that pests and diseases are kept at bay and the grass sward is well developed for easy travelling. We use some biological controls across our fruit farms, we always have bees on farm to help pollinate the apples working with a local beekeeper (bonus – local honey!) and wherever possible we implement biodiversity measures. The best time to visit is late May when the landscape is a swathe of pink flowers. Apple orchards have significant carbon sequestration potential and can help the UK meet its net zero targets. They also improve soil structure and increase biodiversity.

Harvesting

Our early fruiting varieties are harvested in mid-September and our later varieties can be picked as late as mid November. It can be a messy process as we travel through the orchard particularly in a wet autumn. The whole harvest is carried out mechanically – firstly the apples are shaken from the trees, then we blow the apples into the middle of the row, our harvester travels slowly up and down the blown rows paddling the fruit into the conveyors which lift the fruit into a trailer, then transported to the yard where they are bathed in fresh water and sticks and leaves are removed. We fit the hand harvesting of desert apples in whenever we can.