Thanks to Jim Arbury from the RHS who was with us on Saturday, we’ve been able to identify what varieties of apple and pear we’ve harvested in Hackney.
My personal favourite, this apple came from a private garden on Dynevor road. It’s a cooking apple which still tastes delicious raw, although I may have over indulged yesterday! This apple is called a Howgate Wonder and holds the Guinness World Record for the largest apple.
Jim believed this to be a cooking apple which originated in Scotland, called Stirling Castle. The apple is very sweet with a slightly bitter aftertaste from the skin and came from the corner of Palatine and Wordsworth road. As these were very ripe and soft when we picked them we found they worked very well as juice.
A sweet, crisp apple which we scrumped from branches overhanging Lordship road of a tree in an empty property. This was a real hit in the flapjacks as well as delicious raw. Jim wasn’t completely sure which variety the apple was but he suspected it was Merton Worcestor, a variety which originated in South London at the beginning of the 20th Century.
This pear, known as the Vicar of Winkfield, is an old cooking pear which originated in France where it is known as ‘le curé’. We harvested this pear from a large tree in a private garden on Allerton road.
