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Old Apples at Dalemain

A tour around the gardens of Dalemain near Penrith, will lead you to an 18th Century walled garden containing some 30 different heritage apple varieties from the 18th and 19th Centuries.

 

Cooking apples include the famous, strongly acidic, Bramley as well as lesser known Howgate Wonder which produces the largest fruits of all cooking apples, Prince Albert with its juicy flesh and red flushed colouring and the Keswick Codlin with it's soft/course rather dry, acid flesh.

 

Newton Wonder and Charles Ross are Dual purpose apples, who's subacidic nature allows them to be used as cooking apples early in the season and mellow to eating apples in the new year. Newton Wonder is thought to be one of the best baking apples available.

Many desert apples line the boundary of the garden and the rose walk.  The famous Laxton can be found here, it's very juicy sweet flesh, reminiscent of a Cox.

 

One of the oldest apple varieties in the garden is Hambledon Deux Ans which is a very firm apple, coarse in texture, rather dry, slightly sweet and acidic with a feint aromatic flavour.
The Allington Pippin (again bred by Thomas Laxton) is a lovely green flushed red apple with a distinct aromatic flavour.  Lady Sudeley and The Duchess of Kent varieties are also found arching their branches over the lawns.

 

At the top left of the walled garden is the apple house, built as a retreat or grotto in the 16th Century, it has been used since Victorian times to store the many apples on specially built shelves.

The Dalemain apples are turned into "Country House" produce, much of which is consumed in the Mediaeval Hall Tearoom and includes such delights as Apple or Apple and Blackcurrant pie and Apple Flapjack Crumble.  Some of the fruits are turned into own recipe chutneys, who's range includes a wonderful Apricot and Apple.

Britain has the largest apple heritage in the world, with only a handful of the varieties seen for sale today but as can be seen from the collection at Dalemain, old varieties do exist all over the country with many special Apple Day events taking place each year to promote these wonderful fruits.

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The Gloucester Old Spots

The Gloucester Old Spots are the oldest spotted pedigree breed in the world.

A large animal, white in colour with a minimum of one distinct black spot. The ears grow to be quite floppy, almost covering the face of an adult pig.

 

Tough and hardy, they are well suited to the outdoor life.

 

Some of the best tasting pork and bacon comes from GOS and the dams make prolific breeders.

Its placid nature makes this an excellent breed for the first timer.

To find out more about keeping and breeding this wonderful breed, the Gloucester Old Spots Breeders Club have all the information you need.

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The Sweet Pea

This is the time of year that many gardener's are daily gathering bunches of these delightfully fragrant flowers.

An old favourite and mainstay of british gardens for generations, this flower now comes in a huge array of varieties with large colourful blooms and glorious perfume but where did it originate?

Earliest documentation suggests that the plant originates from Sicily in southern Italy and was sent to England in 1699 by a Sicilian Monk, Fransicus Cupani to a Dr. Robert Uvedale, a schoolmaster in Enfield.

Throughout the 18th Century, the original purple/maroon bicolour sported several mutations with even a pink/white being documented around 1730.

At this time, the flowers were produced two to a stem, with the stems being shorter and the flowers smaller than the hybrids we see today.

 The 19th century saw the first grandiflora strain, bred by Henry Eckford in Shropshire.  

These grew in a much wider variety of colours and with much larger flowers but still retaining the unmistakable perfume of the original.  

The work of Henry Eckford gave rise to the whole range of 'Spencer' sweet peas, so named from an original sport grown on the Earl Spencer's estate at Althorp in 1899, the 'Countess Spencer'.

(The Andrew Cavendish Spencer Variety sweet pea, courtesy of Roger Parsons Sweet Peas)

From this date on, much work has gone into the breeding of sweet peas to create long stems for cutting with clusters of large blooms from the purest white through to the darkest velvety purple, bearing the names of well known people such as Norman Wisdom, Monty Don and Terry Wogan.

My grandmother grew sweet peas religiously every year for as long as I can remember and I always try to grow plenty to provide a constant supply for the house.  

This year I obtained some seed from the 'Cupani' variety and it has not disappointed.

As expected it is smaller in flower size bearing only two blooms to each stem, with stem length being only about 15 - 20cm it is suitable for smaller arrangements.

The colour is an exquisite maroon/purple bicolour and packs a perfume punch far in excess of its stature.

For any sweet pea grower, the original 'Cupani' is a must, every single seed germinated without scarification or pre-soaking and the plants themselves grew vigorously without problem.

If you want to find out more about the sweet pea, a great site to visit is Roger Parsons Sweet Peas, where a more detailed history exists courtesy of the extensive research of Roger Parsons, well known among sweet pea growers as a Trustee and Membership Secretary of the National Sweet Pea Society.

He is a former Chairman of the NSPS/Royal Horticultural Society Joint Trials Committee. Roger’s particular interests include the history and development of the sweet pea, other Lathyrus species and the raising of new varieties.

He is available outside the growing season to give illustrated talks to all levels of interest.

Picture above from Roger's web site proudly displaying some of his beauties.