For those of you who have visited Brogdale Farm, you will know that we are located in the middle of over a hundred of acres of beautiful orchards. The site is home to the National Fruit Collections, which houses the world’s largest collection of temperate fruits including apples, pears, cherries, plums, quinces, crab apples and more. Our orchards are packed full of unusual, rare and heritage fruit – including over 2,000 varieties of apples!
This amazing fact means that Apple Day has a special meaning for us. At Brogdale we love to celebrate those more unusual varieties which are very hard to buy in the shops or supermarkets. In fact, a number of our tenants play an important role in helping the public enjoy these very special fruits.
Brogdale Collections is a charity based at Brogdale Farm which was created to provide public access to the National Fruit Collections. They organise training courses and workshops such as pruning, orchard design, cider making and more as well as facilitating visits from schools and community groups. Their expert guides give visitors tours of the orchards describing all the amazing varieties and even offering tastings of some of these very unusual apples.
The orchards at Brogdale are a beautiful and interesting place to visit all year round and anyone with a Brogdale Collection’s annual Orchard Pass can visit as often as they like and appreciate the orchards and their wildlife throughout the seasons.
More details of orchard passes here.
Grow at Brogdale is a specialist fruit tree nursery with a difference, they are in the unique position of being able to graft trees from the National Fruit Collection (NFC). This gives gardeners the amazing opportunity to own their own little piece of the Collections as Grow’s fruit trees include a wide range of the NFC’s rare and heritage varieties.
Grow’s selection of trees and shrubs – all hand-grown by the team – include pears, apricots, cherries, crab apples, damsons, medlars, quinces and most importantly – apples!
They can help you find the perfect tree for you including standard trees, espaliers, stepovers and fan-trained trees.
You can visit Grow and seek advice from their expert grafters and growers before deciding which fruit tree is right for you and your outdoor space. They will also help with advice on how to care for your tree in the future. Find out more via their website.
Tiddly Pomme is the popular shop on Brogdale’s Market Place, selling a wide range of fruit-related produce and gifts.
They regularly stock apples, and other fruit and nuts, straight from the orchards at Brogdale which gives shoppers the wonderful opportunity to buy some very rare and unusual fresh produce.
Tiddly Pomme also sells local fruit juices, cordials, wines, spirits and liqueurs. They make their own delicious Brogdale Craft Cider made entirely from apples from the National Fruit Collections at Brogdale.
More information here.
FAST stands for Fruit Advisory Services Team and they have an office at Brogdale Farm. They work with professional fruit growers to provide a wide range of advice and technical support. FAST aims to help growers improve crop performance and fruit quality.
So, when it comes to celebrating National Apple Day, Brogdale Farm is in a unique position to really shout from the treetops about the amazing variety of apples out there. We work very hard through our tenants to give the public knowledge of and access to the biggest collection of apple trees in the world.
