Apples, apples and more apples.

Following on from the open days we have had quite an exciting period in the gardens. For the visit of our colleagues of South Kensington Estates from London we managed to produce the salads that we all enjoyed at the Barbeque at Bowhouse. These were brilliantly dressed and prepared by Chris Jacobs to compliment the delicious home reared meats. It was a fantastic spread and we all expect to be visiting Chris regularly when he opens the café/restaurant at Bowhouse

A couple of days later we were supplying several varieties of early apples for the Bowhouse food market. Most of the varieties were desert, including Discovery, Worcester Pearmain, George Cave, Lady Sudely and White Joaneting, we were able to send one variety of cooker this one is called Scotch Dumpling. It is quite a large apple that cooks into a lovely frothy puree. It will keep for a few weeks usually into November, but its biggest virtue is the deep pink flowers on the tree in the spring and should you fancy having one in your garden at home it makes a very nice compact tree. We have a bountiful crop of apples this year mainly as a response to 2 consecutive sessions of summer pruning and we will probably be able to take some more to the next Bowhouse

Having mentioned the open day at the start of the blog I should take the chance of saying that it looks like next year our openings will take the form of East Neuk Gardens Trail days again as we did in 2017. The difference being that this time the openings will be in late April and early May during midweek. It’s a format that we found worked well before, having visitors arriving in smaller numbers over a period is much easier to handle and we can accommodate the onsite cars.

If you have driven along the West Drive recently then it may not have escaped your attention that it looks a bit of a mess, we have been trying to widen the road surface by scraping back the grass edges using the front bucket of the estate tractor. The aim here is to expose as much of the tarmac ready for resurfacing work taking place soon.

You may also have noticed at the end of the West Drive that there is a huge expanse of greenness around the west lodge. Gavin chanced his arm a bit in August whilst we were still in the drought period by seeding the lawn, but after a week or so of daily irrigation the first rains came along to help, and we have very quickly got a good green sward really enhancing the property. We have built some beds and pockets of planting soil around the house which will be planted up very soon this will soften up the appearance of the house giving it the country cottage look. Come the winter planting season the beech hedges of the west drive will be extended to the cottage to give it privacy and evergreen screens of Holm Oak and Portugal Laurel will go on the main road side of the property to give not only visual screening, but to soak up a lot of the traffic noise as well.

Well I am off now to make an apple crumble, why not have a go yourself.

Duncan and the gardens team.