Mats J: We have to talk more about the crazy apple year

Looking out at the increasingly greener apple trees. The first year I left the eight trees. And even the other. « It’s quiet to wait with pruning, » there was someone who said.

It turned out to be a lousy advice. Air shoots thick as a bamboo tube would be cut in the third year and I worked in the sweat of my faces.

Since then, annual pruning has been done. The trees are old, planted at the outbreak of World War II. Some years pause trees and give only a few fruit, while others give rich harvest.

It usually gets between 600 and 800 apples. I make juice of most things. Apple mash is difficult to sell in my vicinity and the cellar not cool enough for winter storage, so I give away a lot.

So it’s normal years. But then came the crazy apple year 2024.

High summer heat already prevailed in May during flowering. In the trees it buzzed with insects. Perhaps that was the reason that from the end of July – August it was dignified by fruit.

So brilliantly, these gardens are constructed during emergency times: different trees give steps from late summer to well into October.

When I visited a pomologist in the Tumba Bruksmuseum, he could solemnly proclaim the arrangement in my garden: Sävstaholm, Transparent Blanche, Gyllenkrok’s Astrakan, Oranie, Gravensteiner, Åkerö and Signeisch.

This year I stopped counting at 1,200 apples. I exhibited bags and baskets on the wall. Some passersby snapped on the offer and hungry children sometimes cut a locally grown fruit on their way home from school. The shoemaker on the corner got several bags.

It was sad to take a walk in the neighborhood and see how much fruit was allowed to perish. However, the fall fruit pleased the neighborhood’s already fertilized deer gang.

When I thought I did everything, I met my superior in the care of apples. With the man with SM gold in craft cider, it is orderly and ready. In the garden in Tullinge stood basket boxes with different varieties. I am significantly less organized.

Suddenly I hear myself ask if I can take any apples.

« Sure, take as many as you want … »

He points to a tree that is so over -coated with red fully ripe fruits that it looks like taken from Disney, created in Christmas tree style by Jan Stenbeck.

Giggling I take some even though I already have far too many at home.

But the cider tasted good. Cheers for the apple year -24!

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