Apple Tree Saviour

Well hello dear bloggers! It has certainly been a busy time at Bumble Bee Cottage of late. Where did the holidays go? We spent the first week mooching at home, then two weeks in the Isle of Man, a few more days at home (spending a lot more time reacquainting myself with both the washing machine and the iron than I would like), then my Mum arrived from Australia for a three week visit; now all of a sudden the seven week Summer break is over. The kids only have one more day until it is back to uniforms, books and the weekly barrage of activities.


While my Mum was here she championed the apple tree. I had said that if it didn’t produce a good crop this year after all the extra love and attention it had received then it was going to be replaced with a more productive fruit tree.

Well it certainly produced a bumper crop. One day we went into the garden after some strong winds and a fair amount of fruit was wind fallen. B2 and I collected all the fruit in our white laundry basket and then decided that we may as well pick the remainder of the fruit on the tree at the same time.

We ended up with about 12 or so kilograms of apples. We spent the next hour and a half peeling, chopping, coring and chatting. This of course fanned the flames of my romantic fantasies about those big family get-togethers where everyone chips in to make huge quantities of jam or tomato sauce from home grown or local produce; like you see in TV cooking specials where they discuss a particular region’s food. I just wish my sister and Aussie girlfriends could have been there too. I think it will be a memory of her Nan that B2 will cherish when she is older.

After the addition of three lemons worth of juice, to stop the fruit browning and approximately ½ a cup of castor sugar my Mum cooked the apples for about an hour and we ended up with about 6 litres of apple sauce!

We have had one apple crumble so far and have frozen the rest but as the Bumble Bee’rs know that it is there, lurking in the freezer, calling to them, I doubt it will take long to use it all up.

So the tree gets a reprieve thanks to Nan. I doubt if I would be allowed to remove it now even if I wanted too – the kids know how many desserts wait on its branches :)