Find out about country-wide APPLE DAY EVENTS
Updated every few days between August and October - LOOK AGAIN!
Find out about country-wide APPLE DAY EVENTS
Updated every few days between August and October - LOOK AGAIN!
APPLE DAY IS 19 IN 2008!
Visit our special APPLE DAY PHOTOS & ART GALLERIES
What is Apple Day?
Apple Day is an annual celebration of apple, orchards and local distinctiveness, initiated by Common Ground in 1990 it has since been celebrated each year by people organising hundreds of local events. Why not join in?
Apple Day is a way of celebrating and demonstrating that variety and richness matter to a locality and that it is possible to affect change in your place. Common Ground has used the apple as a symbol of the physical, cultural and genetic diversity we should not let slip away. In linking particular apples with their place of origin, we hope that orchards will be recognised and conserved for their contribution to local distinctiveness, including the rich diversity of wild life they support.
At an Apple Day you can sometimes see hundreds of different varieties of apples, taste some of the more unusual kinds that you cannot find in the shops, and buy some to take home. Nurseries offer interesting varieties of apple trees to buy. There is often an apple identification service when you can bring some apples from your mystery garden trees to be identified by experts and an Apple Doctor with whom you can discuss problems. There is usually lots to eat and drink from apple cakes and chutney to apple juice and cider and often cookery demonstrations with apples. Sometimes there are pruning and grafting demonstrations and games such as apple bobbing and the apple and spoon race, storytelling and archery.
Ten years of Apple Days are described in the Common Ground Book of Orchards.
The Story of Apple Day
Common Ground initiated Apple Day on October 21 1990 in Covent Garden and launched it countrywide with over 50 events in 1991. These ranged from markets in village halls to menus in National Trust houses, pruning and grafting classes, apple roadshows by horticultural societies and apple food and drink in the Houses of Parliament. By 2000 Apple Day was celebrated in more than 600 events around the country and abroad. Events were organised by Councils from Cornwall to Ryedale and Essex, schools, Women's Institutes, historic properties, museums, juice producers, apple growers, cider makers, farmers, nurserymen, restaurants, wild life Trust, supermarkets, arts centre, agricultural and art colleges, garden societies, parish councils and in Community Orchards.
Some Apple Day highlights:
The Longest Peel Competition
James Crowden: Apple Day Poet Laureate
Publications and Entertainments:
Are you holding an Apple day this year? Common Ground offer books, posters, cards and T-shirts relating to apples, trees and orchards. There are also selected examples of others' apple publications (including the recently released book on Australian apple label design, The Art of Apple Branding). Perhaps you are looking for an Apple Day entertainment for all the family ... ? The Nutmeg Puppet Company presents: Apple Pip
Our Orchard and Apple Links page offers a useful book list and some interesting web-sites to visit.
More Apple, Tree and Orchard pages:
Community Orchards
Including case histories of Threatened Orchards
Tree Dressing Day
