Country Enterprise - growing fruit: apples and pears to eat and grapes from vines for wine

<H1>Country enterprise: growing fruit and vines for grapes and wine</H1> <H2>Apples for cider; pears for perry and grapes for wine</H2> <H3>Fruit trees in an orchard</H3> <A HREF=orchard1.htm>Orchard & Vineyard</A></BR>> <A HREF=orchard2.htm>Too many apples</A></BR> <A HREF=orchard3.htm>Pears etc</A></BR> <A HREF=orchard4.htm>Vineyards</A></BR> <A HREF=orchard5.htm>Viticulture</A></BR> <A HREF=orchard6.htm>Not only grapes!</A></P> <P><A HREF=title.htm >Chapter headings</A></P><H3>Other headings included in <a href=title.htm>Country enterprise list of contents</A></H3> <P>Nothing can be more pleasant on a warm summer's day than to be able to sit in a fine orchard, a hive of bees gently murmuring in the distance, a few sheep contentedly cropping the short grass.</P><P> In the dappled light you can daydream of all the things you intend to be busily doing — next year. In sad reality in most of the orchards today you may well be run over if not asphyxiated by a rampant crop-spraying tractor. </P><P>Producing apples and pears for sale can be a frustrating experience. Despite continual movements by our own apple-growers the continental varieties fill our shops. Their uniformity of size and colour means that the customer knows exactly what he is purchasing and, of course, the advertising that backs up the product is superb. Many different varieties are being produced to compete and large sums of money are being spent by brave growers on the presentation of their products. All this really seems to show is that anyone thinking about trying to make money from apples and pears either needs great capital resources or needs their head examining. </P><P>But it need not be either of these. To start planting vast orchards is certainly a nerve-racking venture. So what about the older orchards in existence? </P> <P>A few apple trees at the end of a garden will, in a good year, produce more apples than you can count. </P><P>We have just had such a glut year. The country lanes have been full of fallen-down boxes outside neat cottage gates. The waterlogged sign on the heap of apples it once contained tells its own tale of plenty — 'apples for free: please take'. But in such a year of glut hardly anybody does. Our trees have produced mountains of apples and we have had a very hard struggle to keep up with them. </P><P>We have produced tons of jelly and gallons of cider and wine. The jelly is now mostly sold and the cider and wine are maturing nicely. These are after all traditional products from the orchard. As are the sheep we fattened. They grazed on the windfalls and were fat by late September. We brought pailfuls of windfalls to the pigs and the chickens have scampered about — they like the apple seeds. </P><P>There were times when the sheep were clearly overfaced with plenty. They started taking tiny bites from one apple before passing on to the next; the season slowed up though and they went back and cleared the hitherto neglected ones. Apple chutney, with added redcurrants left from jelly-making, was also produced in quantity. Next year there may well be a bad season and we will long for some of this year's crop. The few boxes of cookers that we have stored should last our own consumption for most of the winter. We did in fact try to sell some really beautiful cookers early in the season only to be told that there was no market at all. That is the whole story of country enterprise — if you cannot sell it as it is, convert it into something that does sell.</P> <P>Less romantic than the orchard but equally desirable is a vineyard.</P><P> In recent years vineyards have started sprouting up again in Britain. The Romans happily cultivated grapes in Britain not many years after Julius Caesar invaded us. Their growth prospered and became by tradition a part of the wealth of many monasteries. With Henry VIII's activities in that quarter, many vineyards fell into disrepair and viruses attacked the vines. </P><P>In the nineteenth century it became popular among the landed gentry to grow grapes under glass. These were for family consumption and for impressing dinner guests. Great sums of money were spent on suitable glasshouses and gardeners' lives were dedicated to producing the finest and most succulent grapes. </P><P>There were various necessities according to gardeners of the day. Whole bullocks were buried (dead ones, fortunately) under the vines to provide nourishment. If the carcass was not buried deeply enough, it often destroyed the vine. If it was planted deeply enough, it probably did no more good than a less horrifying application of bonemeal.</P><P>There is an imaginary line drawn from Pembroke to the Wash and if you live south of it, you can grow vines on south-facing slopes. </P><P>If you live to the north of it, you require the additional shelter of a wall. In exposed areas the grapes will only ripen under glass. Grapes should be planted between October and March. The most successful transplants are usually one-year-old ones. The vines require staking and a top dressing of compost. The variety you choose should be governed first by the weather in your area and second by the type of grapes you wish to produce. </P><P>On heavy soils you may well need to drain, using broken rubble or some- thing similar. If you are fortunate enough to have an established vineyard in your area, you may be able to go on a tour of it. Here you can gather all sorts of valuable information. The varieties used, how they are trained, the work in progress on them and so on. </P><P>Often vineyards sell young vines as part of their business; if the plants are growing well in your area, at least any questions about suitable hardiness are answered. Vineyards often use plastic netting as wind-breaks and for protection from frost. If you can keep an eye on a professional producer it makes your first few years easier.</P> <P>Most grapes grown in the open end up as wine.</P><P>You may wish to make the wine yourself or you may prefer to have it made for you. In our area there is one large producer who makes almost all the local wine. The grapes are harvested at the respective vineyards, transported, turned into wine and then returned to the vineyards where the wine is sold, directly and through retail outlets, as the produce of that vineyard. </P><P>The problem with this kind of manufacture seems to be that as most of the grapes are of the same variety and the method of production is similar, the only possible major factor influencing the flavour is the soil itself. Although this certainly does produce variations it would be nice to have some other differences due to different manufacturers. </P><P>Grapes do still grow under glass today. We have a vine, some eighteen foot wide and very aged. We did not plant it ourselves and so cannot say with truth if it ever had a bullock planted to nourish it. However, it does do its own thing pretty well and with only a little care, produced well over a hundred pounds of grapes last summer. </P><P>To construct the size of greenhouse this vine needs today would be uneconomical. It certainly is delightful to be able to pick great bunches of delicious dessert grapes. We pickled some of them in vinegar with mustard and sold them as an accompaniment to Christmas ham. </P><P>There is another slightly hidden crop from our grapevine. There are many more leaves produced than the vine needs. These make delicious dolmades, stuffed with rice, tomatoes, garlic and meat if you like. They also make a delicious addition to a salad or they can be cooked in a tomato-flavoured casserole with a large squeeze of lemon juice.</P>