Photo Article from the Welsh Hovel - my growing harvest of crabapples

It was just over three years ago when I planted the first three crabapple trees at the Welsh Hovel. In year one I harvested half a kilo, in year two it was about one and a half kilos and this year, as you can see below, it was three kilos. It is a real pain stalking and splitting so many hundreds of little apples but its only going to get worse.

The trees are growing but are still only about a yard high so should, eventualy more than double in size. A fourth tree was planted in my new uper orchard this year so comes onstream next year. And three sapplings provided by the greateful Welsh taxpayer will be planted in the spring after one more winter inside the potting shed. Crabapples are great at cross polinating real apples which is handy as, after a spring planting spree, I now have almost forty real apple trees at various stages of growth.

Those apples were heated last night and drained overnight and so will be crabapple jelly, enough to last all year, by this evening.