My apple tree is bent double. This is sinful: I should have thinned more apples and propped up overburdened branches. Instead, I just watched it bow slowly towards me. The fig is doing a similar dance. Every day now, I go to see if the fruit is ready to let go.
There is much to be said of fruit that will store, or tricks to preserve it, so winter is well fed. But there is also a joy in something that has to be savoured there and then: the fleeting taste of a single month, and a whole year until you can be reunited.
I write often of how much I love my ‘Discovery’ apples, which grow on a child’s drawing of a tree – bright red blobs of intoxicatingly perfumed fruit. It’s one of the first apples to ripen, along with the equally divine ‘Beauty of Bath’; it’s over by the middle of September and no good in storage.
A happy tree is a generous one, and in the spirit of this knowledge (that you cannot eat all the apples), you are forced to give them away to everyone and anyone who passes.
Likewise, the Swedish-raised ‘Katy’ (or ‘Katja’) is another early-ripening variety that is worth growing. It has firm flesh, a hint of strawberry and enough acidity to balance it. It is a pretty thing, with a distinct conical shape and bright red skin that, on closer inspection, is striped over a yellow background. The skin goes distinctly greasy with age, but this is nothing that a quick polish won’t remove.
‘Peasgood’s Nonsuch’ is perfect if you have limited space, because it is as good an eater as it is cooked. It bakes well and purees into a delightful perfume. With care, it can store until early December. If you want a September apple that tastes complex, with anything but the bland sweetness of modern cultivars, try ‘Ellison’s Orange’. It has a rich perfume and leaves a distinct, aniseed flavour. This becomes quite intense with age, and I think it’s better fresh than stored (it lasts into October, but not much longer).
It’s not all about apples, though. If you have less space, try autumn-fruiting raspberries. My friend Birgit gave me a raspberry from her hometown in Bavaria. It’s a yellow, autumn-fruiting berry that blushes pink in the sun, and the most intensely raspberry thing you can imagine to eat. Each berry falls apart in your hands as you pick them, and for this reason it will never be commercialised; yet to pluck these fruits is truly to know a taste of heaven. And if you aren’t friends with Birgit, the variety ‘All Gold’, a yellow-fruited version of the pink ‘Autumn Bliss’, makes an excellent substitute.
Your best bet with any of these raspberries is to wait to buy in winter. Bare-root specimens transplant incredibly well and can easily be sent by mail-order. All my apples have either come from Keepers Nursery in Kent or Walcot Organic Nursery in Worcestershire, which both do a wonderful mail-order service.
