Apple Day at Chastleton 2012

Apple Day was a wonderful day this year. We were blessed with fantastic, sunny weather - which is always good. The staff, volunteers and I worked hard in the weeks leading up to the day and on the day itself to make it a success.
We had a challenge on our hands this year as it has been a very poor year for top fruit and we have had a very small crop compared to last year's bumper crop. We had a late frost in the garden which damaged the fruit blossom on the trees in early spring. The blooms that were left struggled to be pollinated by pollinating insects due to the wet and stormy weather over spring and summer. However, with some imagination we made the day fun and informative for all. We had:
-Marcus making apple juice from Chastleton apples and selling apple trees and advising on fruit,
-Michael talking about bee keeping and displaying the observation hive,
-John talking about fruit and cropping with our apple information display,
-a fruit tour with John,
-Taster tours of the garden were given by Julie and Jane C,
- a childrens trail and family activities designed and run by Dawn, Linda and Anneflore,
-a cake baking demonstration using apples and pears was given by Jean,
-Crudges cheeses for sale,
-produce and flowers from the garden, jams and chutneys for sale - Heather, Jane C and Julie manned the stall,
-garden stewarding to meet, greet and direct the visitors was covered by Jane H, Julie, Jane C and Anna,
-croquet engagement with croquet team volunteers and visitors.

The Forecourt hosted bees, an apple exhibition and produce, flower and cheese stalls.

Jane H did an excellent job of welcoming visitors to the garden.

 

Chastleton Garden produce and flowers for sale.

 

 

Chastleton chutneys and jams for sale. Many thanks to Amanda who put a lot of hard work into making and providing a delicious selection.

Some of the garden apples and pears for sale.

 

Michael (our garden volunteer bee keeper) with his stand and the observation hive and honey.

 

John (below) is our resident volunteer fruit expert and was busy manning the apple information exhibition, chatting to visitors and leading his fruit tour of the garden.

 

 

These lovely ladies are two of our croquet volunteers from our volunteer croquet team at Chastleton. They did great work playing with visitors on the croquet lawns and encouraging people to pick up a mallet and have a go.

 

 

Heather manned the produce and flower stall, while Jane C and Julie did a wonderful job of leading the garden taster tours.

 

Jean bravely took up the challenge of doing 2 cake baking demonstrations (with me assisting). Jean was absolutely fantastic. She went through baking an apple and almond cake (that was gluten and diary free) and then a sumptuous pear and chocolate cake. She provided lovely cakes for the audience to sample. At the end of the session the recipes were available for visitors to take home and try for themselves.

 

The audience were very keen to sample Jean's wonderful apple and pear cakes.

 

Dawn and Anneflore took on doing the family activities in the garden with great success.

 

All in all a brilliant day was had by all. We had lots of happy visitors and made a good profit on the produce and flowers sold from the garden. A huge thank you to all those involved and look forward to Apple Day 2013. Anna.