Carwyn has been involved with the history and growing of apples for many years now, and has written books on the subject, firstly “Afalau Cymru”, also published in English as
“Apples of Wales”. This was in parallel with a book which records the first National collection of Welsh apple varieties, and both books were best sellers within the first 3 months. He then published a book on Welsh food stories and the more recent story of the Welsh landscape. This begins with the fortunes of orchards here and the fact that so muchof the environment has been lost to industrialisation.
We started with a quiz about the names of varieties of apple that have been and, to some extent, are still grown in Wales. Not sure how well we did here with our answers, but some of the names made the audience laugh and we found that some of the unlikely sounding ones actually were apples!
There are apparently over 7000 known varieties of apple in the world, but the currently commercially available apples were all bred originally from the Golden Delicious, Red Delicious and Cox, and unfortunately most on the supermarket shelves were picked around 6 months ago. The most prolific apple producers in the world are USA, Poland and China. Historically and even recently, Wales has not been very closely associated with apple production – Lynne Yates mentioned in her cookbook (2010) that “Wales has never produced much fruit as the soil conditions are not suitable”.
However, in the Mabinogion (combining Celtic mythology and Arthurian romance, written 12th-13th century), Queen Rhiannon at her wedding feast orders her husband’s men to “wait outside in the orchard”. There are many Welsh names which can be linked with the word apple, for instance Afallon (or Avalon) meaning place of fruit/apples. The Bishop of St Davids in 1326 had gardens and orchards and many ordinary people had fruit trees and bushes. There is a record of 2 women in 1390 in St Asaph who had 2 orchards.
After 1536, following the Act of Union then the dissolution of monasteries, it seems the rich became richer and nobles of the land were able to invest in fruit production; there is a record from 1618 documenting the growth of lemons, oranges, figs, nectarines etc which had not been grown in Britain previously. Apple trees by this time were being distinguished between sweet and sour apples and it is recorded that a quantity of sweet apple trees in fruit were worth 15 pigs!
In the 1700s small plots were often available to cottagers for growing veg, flowers, herbs and 5 or 6 apple trees, and gardens were beginning to be seen as places of pleasure and gentle recreation. A land use survey around this time recorded that, of 850 acres in Brecknockshire, 350 acres were used for apples. Around this time, apples were embedded within Welsh culture via place names and many allusions were being made to fruit in folk songs and poetry.
The First and Second World Wars obviously had a great effect on fruit production and many trees were grubbed out to provide land for the most necessary vegetables – if you had a couple of apple trees in your garden they must have been highly prized.
It is not true that apple trees will not survive in very wet areas, neither is it true that the trees must be correctly and frequently pruned. The Bishop’s Palace near Carmarthen has a very old orchard, still flourishing and producing, and yet when the River Towy floods, the waters can often be seen half way up the confines of the walled garden.
To conclude the talk, a discussion was held around the loss of skills within horticulture and fruit growing. The Welsh government is taking small steps to address this and there are some subsidies for orchards plus encouragement of the use of apples for their nutritional value, but some joined up thinking is required around production and subsidies and how to use the food being produced. The government does need to facilitate and not lead because there are people outside of government who have the knowledge required.
Several questions were put to Carwyn about pruning and he encouraged not to overprune and certainly not to prune in the first year. Also, when did the idea of pruning begin? – apparently the Romans knew about it..
We really enjoyed the talk; Dawn thanked Carwyn and a raffle was held for one of Carwyn’s books.
Cothi Gardeners 