Apple Day 06

A bright, sunny and remarkably warm Sunday ensured that Apple Day 2006 was a resounding success. Harestane’s car park was full and overflowing for much of the time, the Morris Dancers needed towelling down and a large part of the Border’s bumper apple harvest was sold or drunk – in fact juice production just couldn't keep up with demand and the production line will have to be modified for next year to improve efficiency!

But most of all, people queued to have their unknown apples identified. Alec West and John Butterworth, our expert apple identifiers, did sterling work in trying to meet the demand in what is a very tricky job.

Just how tricky was demonstrated when they were stumped by a smallish, dark red/purple apple, whose distinctive colour maybe should have made identification easy. Unwilling to be beaten, Alec and John took the apple home with them only to realise later that evening, perhaps as a result of a relaxing glass of wine or just as a result of not having the pressure of numbers waiting, that the apple was one they had in their display all along. What made this oversight worse was that it probably came from a tree that they had grafted themselves!

This tale shows that the key to apple identification doesn't just lie in the fruit; knowing when the tree flowered is almost as important as having an apple to look at, and allows many possible varieties to be ruled out.

So, if you or anyone you know, has an apple not yet identified at Apple Day, you need to keep a close eye on it during the spring – note the date when the first flowers open and the date when most flowers are fully open, usually a few days later. Keep the information safe and bring it to Apple Day with your apple.

Apple Day 07

The 21st October 2007 was National Apple Day and that's the date on which BOG hosted its 8th Apple Day at Harestanes Visitor Centre, nr Jedburgh. As with 2006, the weather was bright and sunny and wonderful for milling around the courtyard browsing amongst the stalls reflecting all things Applely. [Some might argue about the apple link for Hoardwheel Farm, but pork is one of the traditional accompaniments for apple sauce - one of the others being custard!]

While we usually run Apple Day on pretty much the same format we do try and find something new each year. This time it was information on cider making and drying apples, with bottles of James White organic apple juice (and other apple related juices) for sale - these proved very popular! Selling bottled juice was a response to requests in previous years where tasting freshly pressed juice has stimulated palettes. Unfortunately, Food & Hygiene regulations makes selling freshly pressed juice rather difficult - but we still had samples produced by Bill Smith with his small apple press.

In the Apple Identification Room we had a an amazing display of apples put together by Alec West, who was also on hand to help folks to identify their "mysterious" apples.

Other regular attractions included the apple produce stall - several people were eagerly hunting down the recipe for the apple muffins on sale! - music and dancing by Rag Bag Morris Dancers, and the painting of many a young face with a wonderful Apple by Harestanes staff And, as usual, William Tell did good business!! Thanks to all who brought along produce surplus apples or helped with staffing a stall.

This year Apple Day is on Sunday 19th October - there will be some new faces on the organising team, there's always plenty to do, so if you would like to help with the organising or if you have any suggestions for the day please get in touch - Laura Aitken on 01896 668966.

Jayne Brettell

PS If you are wondering about the origins of "Apple Day" this is what it says on the Common Ground website [www.commonground.org.uk]:"On October the 21st every year, an annual celebration of apple, orchards and local distinctiveness. Initiated by Common Ground in 1990 it has since been celebrated each year by people organising hundreds of local events". The website is very interesting at has a Virtual Apple Gallery which is worth a look.

And finally, many of you will recall that John Butterworth from Ayrshire has previously assisted Alec with apple identification. Unfortunately for us, but happily for John, he has decided that business keeps him from travelling east in October. BOG owe him a huge thank you for all the effort and time he has put in to making Apple Day such a success over many years. To see what keeps him busy visit www.butterworthsorganicnursery.co.uk

Potato Day 07

Potato Plus day 2008

Produce Day 07

A report on BOG's 2007 Produce Day - Images in the Image Gallery. This report first appeared in BOG News.

On Sunday, 26th August, the BOG Produce Day, the first for several years, was held at St. Boswells Village Hall. It was, even with the fine sunny weather, a tremendous day which all our visitors really enjoyed.

Despite the really bad growing weather this year, members came up trumps and brought in loads of vegetables, flowers, fruit, and herbs to fill the display tables, together with delicious home made soup, cakes, jams and other goodies to make the teas as memorable as the exhibition. The hall looked stunning with loads of colour and all sorts of interesting items on show. I found it particularly helpful that many people had added written information on the varieties they had grown, the conditions they grew in and further details of interest to other gardeners.

Besides the Produce displays, we also had a display of photographs of members' gardens and a display prepared by Val Smith on varieties available through the Heritage Seed Library, which caused a lot of interest. The photographs let people get an insight into the bigger picture of real hands-on organic gardening, while the Heritage Varieties display showed how many traditional varieties were in danger of being lost, something many people do not fully realise. And in true organic gardener fashion, several people brought in seeds for other gardeners to take away and try.

There was also plenty to eat and drink. Besides the teas, there was also the opportunity to try tasting a selection of salads and raw vegetables and a number of potato varieties, freshly cooked in several ways. I was particularly interested in this as you rarely get the opportunity to make this sort of direct comparison. Surprisingly, Pink Fir Apple make particularly good chips!

As well as selling teas, we had a stall selling surplus produce as well as a devious system allowing people to buy items from the displays, at the discretion of the exhibitor, for collection at the end of the show. We had decided that all the proceeds from these sales would go to Farm Africa, a charity that works with rural farmers in Africa. I was delighted to hear that we had raised over £400 for this really worthwhile cause.

Although the Produce show is essentially non-competitive, there was, one hotly contested competition - the prestigious BOG Catastrophe Cup. There were several very impressively catastrophic entries, but our Chairman finally made the difficult decision and this handsome trophy was presented to Kate Potts of Newton by the Sea, for a truly pathetic cucumber plant which had thwarted all Kate's efforts at nurturing.

The BOG Produce Show really displayed everything that is best about organic gardeners and BOG members in particular. It was relaxed and informal, involved a lot of exchanging of ideas and materials, inspired many visitors to give organic gardening a go and spurred us all on to try something else in our gardens next year. A great day for everyone!

Judith Davison

Produce Day 2008

Wasn’t it a great day? We were really busy this year at The Maltings in Berwick. Loads of BOG member came along but we also had many non members, including many people quite new to the idea of organic gardening, and so we were able to pass on the message about the benefits of organic growing and eating to them, and recruited several new members.  Besides impressive displays of produce from members (particularly impressive given the awful weather this summer), we had a lot of really interesting displays and activities. Bill and Val not only set up their display of Heritage varieties, but also did a display on pest and weed control, and brought in their “Patio-Gro”. This system, which allows people without gardens to grow salad leaves etc. fitted well with the tasting table, where, this year, David and Steve concentrated on salad leaves which we munched our way through in the course of the day. Frances looked after our growing collection of photographs of members’ gardens, workshops etc. while Robert set up a display of potato varieties, all grown from seed bought at Potato Day. Outside on the terrace, Lesley and Maxine ran a number of activities for children, which kept our younger visitors happy and helped them explore their own ideas on garden produce. Our core displays of books literature, run by Marina and Joy, and the advice table looked after by Sarah and David, drew a lot of interest and sorted out a lot of garden problems. Because of limited kitchen facilities, the catering was less varied than we would have liked, but Roberta and her helpers still managed to serve delicious plates of cakes and scones, which people could enjoy with a cup of tea, and the view over the rooftops and the river. Despite the poor growing season, people brought in loads of baking and produce for the Farm Africa stall, run by Sarah and Blair, and we were able to donate over £300 to Farm Africa. The big point of the day occurred when our chairman Sarah Eno, awarded the BOG Catastrophe Cup 2008. This year it was won by Heather Whitacker of St. Boswells. Heather’s parsnips had looked magnificent when they were growing. Unfortunately, all the luxuriant foliage was misleading, as we saw with the tiny parsnips Heather brought along. Many thanks to everyone who organised displays, carried stuff around, baked, brought in produce, helped set up and gave up their time on the day to help run things.

Workshops

A number of workshops are held each year in which members learn about gardening techniques and put them into practice