I made most of the short calm after the storm this morning to pick up the apples the wind knocked off. They pretty much exactly filled a 37 litre box, and got turned into 6 litres of apple juice by lunch time.

I have already made two batches of juice this autumn, coming to 12l in total, and still have enough apples in storage for, I reckon, another 40l — it has been an exceptional year for apples in the UK by all accounts, I estimate that our single ancient, cantankerous, tree has produced in excess of 120kg, the biggest crop ever.

There has been some speculation around why the apple crop has been so good this year (it was equally so for our gooseberries and currants): warm summer, etc. My main observation is that it’s been an unusually good year for bees, whereas last year (when the same tree produced under twenty kilo), was one of the worst years for bees I recall. I have no idea what variety our ancient tree is, but I am fairly certain it is a variety that doesn’t self-pollinate: no bees, no apples.

And to think I nearly chopped this tree down when we first moved into the house over twenty years ago. It was already old and cantankerous back then and only had a few apples on that year. But my stepfather, who has been growing fruit trees all his life, talked me out it — ‘I’ll prune it for you, and give it another year to see’ …

Well, it’s produced apples ever since, most years we just used a few for a crumble, or to dry, and left the rest for the birds, but a couple of years ago, on the back of a particularly large crop (about 90kg that year) I bought a small press and started making juice.

The tree is needing another pruning, not least to reduce the hight a bit; last night, with the wind coming from an unusual direction, I thought a few times it was going to come down on the neighbours’ brand new garden outbuilding. I’d hate for that to happen, and even more, I’d hate to lose the old tree.