MARCHER APPLE NETWORK
RHWYDWAITH AFALAU'R GORORAU

Clunton Scrumpers 2006

The second year of our village’s juicing and orchard venture proved overwhelmingly successful. We anticipated a slow build up of demand for our juicing facilities, mainly from the fruit trees that village members have planted over the last few years. Instead we had requests for our services from growers up to forty miles away. After four exhausting days and some hundreds of litres of juice produced, our team of volunteers were wondering whether we harboured a cuckoo in our village nest.

Of course the volume of fruit was exceptional this year, but the demand highlighted the shortage of juicing facilities elsewhere in Shropshire, Herefordshire and Powys. An encouraging sign has been that some other villages have asked us how they can provide similar facilities, and that the Secret Hills Centre at Craven Arms are thinking along these lines to go with the new orchard they are planning.

In the meanwhile, to prevent us becoming totally overwhelmed, we will be limiting our services to those growers within ten miles of our village.

A reluctant decision, because it was most enjoyable meeting growers from further afield, and we learnt a lot from them about cider and perry varieties which were new to us, and better still to taste the juice from them. Another novelty for us was the chance to demonstrate juicing at the Church Stretton Apple Day. The interest shown despite unfortunate weather emphasised our belief that the enthusiasm for home produced fruit juice is widespread and growing.

Anne Shepherdson