Rural Knowledge

The knowledge that is held in the minds of some farming people amazes me. It doesn’t matter how many times I read The New Complete Guide to Self Sufficiency cover to cover, it will never compare with a lifetime of living on the land. During one of our daily family walks down our lane we stopped for a chat with one of our neighbours. He is a salt of the earth elderly farmer living in a nearby cottage with his sister and brother. We were chatting about the crop of apples on our apple trees which was enormous the first year we saw the house. We then committed a major error … we invested in a juicer and were arrogant enough to look forward to drinking home grown apple juice during the following years months of September and October. Obviously jinxing ourselves with optimism, the trees failed to fruit for the following two years! As we chewed and shared beach nuts overhanging the lane we discussed the ins and outs of pruning with our neighbour. He reminisced how people would come from far and wide to poach the famously delicious apples from our houses previous owner! He suggested a tip which he says many local people used to do years ago. Cut out a slit in the bark of the apple tree trunk about six inches long and half an inch wide. In January cut a similar slit of bark out of a whitethorn tree trunk and slot that into the gap you have just removed from the apple tree. Tie a string around the trunk to secure the bark. He swears that in doing this the apple tree bounty increases dramatically, and the apples themselves grow to an enormous size. You won’t find that information on my bookshelf, but I will certainly be trying the technique this spring.