A Third Of A Tonne

Last year our apple picking managed to produce 360 bottles and in the blog entry dated 13th October, Juicing, I gave an explanation behind the process, well this year I have photos!
The team picked 16 trays of apples, cookers and eating, as well as 2 trays of pears.

These trays were taken to Waterperry and tipped into a large crate, total weight a third of a tonne. Chris, the apple expert at Waterperry, labels the crate so there is no mix up with any other fruit.

The next step, these aren't our apples by the way, is to feed them into the juicing machine where they are chopped up into a pulp, under Graham's watchful eye.

Once all the fruit has been chopped and the large container at the bottom of the feed if full the pulp is taken to the juice squeezer.

The pulp is placed into several square frames, each wrapped in a cloth making a cheese. Nine cheeses are placed in a cheese stack and then pressed at a pressure of 380 bars.

The intense high pressure then squeezes all the juice out down a tube into a vat until every last drop is captured. The cheese are then unwrapped and the waste placed into a box which is then fed to the pigs and pheasants of Oxfordshire.

The juice is then moved to the pasteurising room where vitamin c is added, allowed to settle , then bottled in to heat sterilised bottles. We are now waiting for the return of our juice for the labelling process to begin.

Apple Picking 2010

The trees have produced a good crop of apples again this year and they are now ready for harvesting and, after the great success of last years trial run, will be used to produce Worcester College Apple Juice.

By the end of the day a dozen trays of apples have been picked by the team and are stored in the greenhouse overnight ready for transportation to Waterperry tomorrow.

The Change Begins

The night temperatures are dropping and the leaves are falling, it is time to start bringing in all the tender plants in to the greenhouse for their protection over the winter. Ali starts with emptying the pots in the Linbury Building and the urns by the herbaceous border, keeping some as new stock plants and the rest go to the compost pile.

Down at No 17, Joe scatters an autumn feed over the newly levelled soil, followed by grass seed which he then lightly rakes into the soil, grass within two weeks apparently.

Levelling off

Ali, Joe, Ady and Graham spent the day continuing to transform the back garden in No 17. Whilst Joe and Ali built a very rustic stone wall at the bottom of the garden, Ady and Graham continued to clear all the rubble from the garden.

Once the wall was finished, all four joined together to move the soil, moving it from the highest side over to the low side until, eventually, the garden was level. It is now ready for the grass seed to be added for the lawn.

A Wire Rake

The turf on the banks was relaid two years ago and over that time a layer of thatch has built up, resulting in the need for scarification. Joss (our grass guru, formerly known as Josh) will be spending the next few days removing the thatch with a wire rake.
This is the first of many lawn maintenance jobs Joss will be performing over the next few months, most, if not all the lawns will be attended to in his autumn maintenance programme. See blog entries for last October for the reasons for all this hard work.

Fresher's Day

It's Fresher's Day for the universities in Oxford and at Worcester College it is the gardening team that welcome our new students and their families.

Each student is welcomed by Simon with instructions for the day, then the car parking team, lead by Ady ably assisted by Joe and Ali, show them where to park. Tractors with trailers are driven by Josh, Graham and Kieron to assist with the movement of their belongings to their new accommodation, those closest to the car park have the use of wheelbarrows. Over 100 students arrived today, the weather stayed dry and the day was a successful operation by the team.

Rain

As forecast all week, today is a wash out. The gardeners have been saving up their indoor jobs ready for this predicted day.
Ali, Joe and Kieron spend much of the day in the greenhouse potting up the Polyanthus and Viola plugs in to individual pots as well as potting up the cuttings that have now rooted.
Josh and Graham spent time bent over the quad mower that has been leaking oil from an unknown source, drops of oil spotted on the quadrangle grass on the previous mow. The leak was eventually found and the mower is going off for repairs.