Category Archives: Orchard

Get a load of my plums!

Posted on January 13, 2026 by james

Victoria plums, that is. I’ve never had so many before. We can’t eat them all right now, so most will be destoned and frozen.

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Pressing the first batch of my own apples

Posted on January 13, 2026 by james

In the past I’ve mostly mixed up all my apples to press, but there were so many in 2025 that varietal pressings became viable. This is the first batch, of Blenheim Orange. After the Blenheim Orange I had some Ashmeads … Continue reading →

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Speidel apple press bladder replacement

Posted on January 12, 2026 by james

Oh no! Fortunately it is possible to buy replacement bladders. Unfortunately, removing the old bladder can be something of a pain. It would appear that from the factory, the pipework for the hose connections and pressure release valve is put … Continue reading →

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Happy Birthday to you…

Posted on January 6, 2026 by james

I realised this evening that last apple season was the tenth anniversary of building my own pack press. And sadly the press didn’t get used this year, as I had access to a hydropress that was much quicker and less … Continue reading →

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Memory Lane, 28th August 2023: Damsons and plums

Posted on July 2, 2024 by james

Freshly picked…

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Memory Lane, 26th November 2022

Posted on April 8, 2024 by james

Oh dear! No more apple peeling for you! After several years of sterling service, the crank on our apple peeler/corer has snapped off. Don’t think there’s much I can do to repair this one. It might be time to invest … Continue reading →

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Memory Lane, 13th November 2022: Juice, juice baby

Posted on April 6, 2024 by james

It’s that time again. Always seems to come around so soon even though it’s mid-November already. The apple press is on its annual outing… Looks very appealing (I tried to make that more like appleing, but it just didn’t work … Continue reading →

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Last of the 2023 apple juice

Posted on March 24, 2024 by james

It’s not done too badly. Pressing was late November, and whilst I did press quite a bit of juice not all of it was frozen for drinking straight. But today I opened the very last bottled. No more until the … Continue reading →

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Memory Lane, 11th October 2022: Pears going bananas

Posted on March 20, 2024 by james

To prevent losses to the chickens (there have already been a few), today I picked all the remaining pears from the tree in their run (Concorde is the variety as far as I recall). Now I just have to work … Continue reading →

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Pressing apple juice, 2021

Posted on December 5, 2021 by james

It seems far longer than three weeks ago that I collected all of the apples from our orchard that could be used for juice, but today I finally managed to get organised to press them. I collected six 20kg feed … Continue reading →

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