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- 96% of our native peat bogs have now disappeared. The remaining 4% are under threat due to the demand for peat products from gardeners and growers.
- 1 million people died during the Irish potato famine and a further 1 million emigrated.
- The Romans introduced composting more than 2 000 years ago as a way of building soil fertility.
- In Britain 30% of our vitamin C requirement can come from potatoes.
- Although bees do sting, they are also responsible for many good things like pollination of plants and honey making.
- Waste analysis suggests there are at least 4 million tonnes of household waste a year that could be composted in the U.K.
- Onions were grown by the Ancient Egyptians in about 3 000 BC.
- Strawberries and other plants contain a chemical called phytochrome that tells them whether it is day or night and how long the day is.
- The golden flowers of fennel can attract almost 500 different insects. Up to 300 of these will help control pests.
- Caterpillars increase their size 1000 times from hatching to become a pupa.
- People have been eating apples for over 8,500 years and growing apple trees for at least 4000 years.
- Apples were taken to Tasmania and planted there by Captain Bligh in 1788.
- The Duke of Milan had an orchard in full fruit carried into his dining room “in little carts” for a special dinner in 1560.
- Settlers in 1780s Ohio were legally obliged to plant at least 50 apple or pear trees within three years of making a settlement – before they erected a permanent dwelling!
- The Roman goddess of apples was called Pomona. She has a cooking apple named after her – Cox’s Pomona, raised by Mr Richard Cox who bred the renowned Cox’s Orange Pippin.
- In the 18th Century the cider allowance, part of the farm worker’s wage, was 2 quarts a day for a man, and one for a boy, but at harvest time a double allowance was given to the mowers.
- In 1740 Samuel Thompson discovered an excellent eating apple when he was excavating the Middlesex Canal in Massachusetts, USA. The apple, called Baldwin, is widely grown throughout America and the site of the original tree is marked by a stone apple on a pillar.
- Blackbirds, song and mistle thrushes, redwings and other members of the thrush family all love eating apples. So do starlings and crows.
- Red Admiral, Comma and Peacock butterflies love to sip the fermenting juice from rotting apples on a sunny autumn afternoon. Wasps do too!
- Apples are eaten by squirrels, mice, hedgehogs and deer: even rabbits enjoy fallen fruit.
- Hedgehogs were reputed to carry ripe apples back to their nests for winter storage by rolling on the ground under the trees. When the hedgehog uncurled and wandered off, it would have fruit embedded on its spines to take home.
- In mid to late April, you may notice clouds of big black flies around your apple trees. They’re called St Mark’s Fly and are valuable pollinators. Despite their fearsome appearance, they don’t sting or bite. Traditionally they appear around St Mark’s day, April 25th.
- Apple pests include Codling, March and Winter moths – but their larvae provide a useful food for blue and great-tits. There is a number of moths who feed only on apple trees, including the Apple Bud Moth, Apple Ermine, Apple Leaf Skeletonizer, Apple Leaf Miner, Apple Fruit Moth, Apple Pygmy, Green Pug, Leopard, Red-Belted Clearwing, Ysolopha spp. Up to 70 different species of moth may eat apple trees, either foliage, flowers or inside the twigs. Don’t worry, you are most unlikely to have them all eating your tree at the same time!
- Lacewing adults and larvae feed on the Rosy Apple Aphid.
- Garden Chafer beetles may be found feeding on apple leaves.
- Bullfinches can be a terror in the orchard, eating the buds in late winter when food is scarce. Protect your fruit trees and bushes with netting from late January onwards.
- Blue, Great and Long Tailed tits all feed on overwintering insects hiding in the bark of your apple tree. Encourage them to eat the baddies in your garden by hanging fat in the branches of the apple trees during winter months.
- Apple varieties that have large flowers with thick petals curling inwards, are said to be more frost resistant.
- Apples can be grown in the UK at an altitude as high as 412m above sea level, but in most areas around 198m is the limit of successful cultivation.
- It has been calculated that a large apple tree will contain in its leaves 248gm of nitrogen, 248gm of potassium and nearly 85gm of phosphates every year.
- The following apple varieties have beautiful pink coloured flowers and are worth growing as ornamental trees – Emneth Early, Irish Peach, Laxton’s Epicure, Keswick Codlin, George Neal, James Grieve, Arthur Turner, Jonagold, Suntan, Blenheim Orange, Chiver’s Delight, Bramley’s Seedling, Bess Pool, Rosemary Russet, Cornish Gilliflower, Holstein, Brownlees Russet, King’s Acre Pippin, Lane’s Prince Albert and Sandringham.
- The most widely planted cooking apple in the UK is Bramley’s Seedling.
- Many apple varieties have been found as chance seedlings on rubbish tips or in hedges. These include Granny Smith, Keswick Codlin, Bloody Ploughman and Claygate Pearmain.
- Apple juice is the most popular non-alcoholic drink after water in Eastern Europe.
- The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale Horticultural Trust in Kent grows over 2000 different apple varieties. They are open to the public and will try to identify any variety sent in to them, for a moderate price.
- In a small Leicestershire village, Shakerstone Resident’s Association planted ten cooking apple trees of Dumelow’s Seedling (alias Wellington), originally grown by a local farmer, to commemorate the millennium.
- Claybrooke Water Mill, still working to date, has cogs made from apple wood. Cherry wood has been used for these at other sites. Apple timber is hard, dense and shock resistant so it is ideal for this purpose.
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