An autumn apple feast at Brodie Castle

The best tasting apples straight from the tree are Worcester Pearmain and Norfolk Royal but these do not keep well. Most of the trees are labelled with the variety name and show if it is a cooking apple (C) or dessert apple (D). Fruit for the castle was so important that a storeroom was specifically built next to the Bothy.

With such history still growing in the grounds, it’s an honour to care for these majestic trees. Their age is starting to take its toll, with some of them in a delicate state and most suffering from canker, a fungal disease that attacks the bark and weakens the branches.

The gardening team here at Brodie manage this in a number of ways, from propping limbs that are liable to fail, pruning and mulching to regularly harvesting fruit from the heavy croppers to reduce the end branch weight.

We start the year with winter pruning in late January, reducing the previous year’s growth down to 3 or 4 buds and clearing out any dead, damaged or diseased wood. This is followed up with a mulch beneath the trees every two years.

If time allows, it’s good to do a summer prune at the beginning of August on some of the trees, to reduce the vigorous growth and help give better shape. This also helps ripen the fruit by letting more air and sun into the canopy.

Usually around the middle of September we start to notice the branches bending with the weight of apples, so it’s around now that we have a first pick, to reduce end weight on the limbs.

The picked fruit is stored and used by the castle seasonally, just as it would have been hundreds of years ago. Visitors can sample the delights of the harvest in the Castle Café (open Wed–Sun, 10am–4pm), where there are often recipes containing the local crops.

October is our true apple season when most of the crop falls or is picked. Not all the apples are harvested; those that remain on the tree (and a good number of windfalls) provide a great source of food for bees, butterflies and birds.