Apple Day 21st October

Our first Apple Day celebration at the Windmill Hill City Farm was a great success.  Over 500 people came to join in a range of fun appley activities, and enjoyed delicious, freshly-pressed apple juice.  There are some great photos on our Facebook page.

A dozen people helped to pick (mainly Bramley) apples from the Farm, staff and visitors brought in fruit from their own garden, and we had some emergency supplies just in case …

Altogether 7 or 8 green trugs full of apples were processed to a fine mixture which started to produce juice as soon as it was loaded into the hydropress.  The juice was intense in flavor, so we were able to do some ‘second pressings’ of the pulp mixed with water and still get a tasty juice.  The final dry pulp was added to the Farm's compost heap.

As people were drinking the apple juice almost as quickly as we were making it, we didn’t get an exact measure of the total volume produced.  Our best estimate is 80 litres.  It was so popular we ran out of cups.  Some lucky people got to take a whole bottle home at the end.

We are now discussing how best to make the fruit pressing equipment available for hire to other City Farms, community orchards and local people with lots of fruit trees.

In the children’s area they had a go at peeling, slicing and coring apples in one go using an ingenious hand-driven gadget.  They also bobbed for apples – not as easy as it looks!  A beautiful Wish Tree was created with hopes for the day and for the future, this is now in the Farm’s Reception area.