It feels like Christmas has come early at our house. I’ve been given an apple press, and am juicing this year’s bumper crop of fruit. The kids and I are pushing barrows of apples, from our mini orchard to the kitchen.
Eric Robson, the chairman of Gardeners’ Question Time, talks endlessly about his apple press. His evangelism has converted me to presses, which are a wonderful way to use up those less-than-perfect fruits.
You can press the whole apple, but I always chop mine in half, to check for codling moth larvae. Once
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Apples
By choosing disease-resistant varieties and bagging the fruit to exclude insects, you can grow gorgeous, chemical-free apples like these.
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Apples may seem like the last bastion of pesticide-dependent gardening. In many commercial orchards, apples are sprayed 10 to 20 times per year. It’s not hard to find organic home gardeners who still believe it’s nearly impossible to grow good fruit without pesticides. Furthermore, most people probably expect organic fruit to come with a few spots or chew marks. I used to rely on insect traps and biological sprays, and I would still have fruit that was covered with disease and infested with worms.
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Apples