A Permaculture Apple Day of Skill and Produce Sharing at our Homestead

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I am beginning a 10 week series on DTube where at the start of every week I will upload one of my favorite homesteading/permaculture videos from my YouTube channel. Very soon I am going to begin uploading my YouTube videos a week before on DTube with the hope of bringing more people to join this awesome community on Steemit. 

(To view this week's video on DTube, click here)

I thought I would start this series with a video I created about a Permaculture Apple Day we had on our homestead in Wales a couple of summers ago. We are a part of Lampeter Permaculture Group which has just over 50 members and once a year someone will host an apple day. 

This is a fantastic event because members are encourage to bring their apples and we will have 3-4 presses going so at the end of the day everyone will have apple juice to take back home along with all the skills they’ve learnt.

 

There is something so incredible about watching the fresh apple juice gush from the press, and when you taste it...well no other apple juice compares. We pressed cider, dessert and cookers that day because why not? I will admit that I am a bit of a fan of eating cooking apples, probably because they are bigger and slightly bitter.
Including children, we had about 30 people take part in the event and it was an absolute buzz of conversation. We were blessed with some lovely weather as well as delicious food. 

Once a month we will have a workday at a member’s house and we all bring food to contribute for a shared lunch. It is very powerful having such a productive and satisfying day without the exchange of money. The real exchange is through learning and teaching and building strong connections with like-minded people. 

The nutshell process of making apple juice:

• Cut small apples into halves and bigger apples into quarters
• Half fill a bucket and use a clean fence post to smash them up/or use a device called an apple scratter
• Place the apple mush into an apple press
• Turn the handle and watch the juice pour into a container
• Bottle this up and either drink within 2 days, turn it into cider or pasteurize
• Repeat (a very important step)

I noticed that it was the children who were having the greatest fun, they couldn’t stop drinking the fresh juice and absolutely loved using the fence post to bash up apples. Some kids do have a destructive streak in them, so why not get them bashing up apples? I know from experience that I enjoyed doing the bashing.

For this video I interviewed Angie Polkey who is a permaculture teacher and a big part of the permaculture movement, particularly in Wales. I hope you enjoy it and that it inspires you to get a load of people together and create a strong group.

What I really value about being in the permaculture group is the diversity of people, be it their age, background or interests. It is always so refreshing to go to one of the events and feel that shared energy of purpose and drive as well as being in a very caring environment. I regret not doing more with the group, and this year I will strive to make more meetings. 

And so here we the end product of a day of pressing. Remember that there was also plenty of juice consumed before it actually reached the bottling stage. Everyone enjoyed having their own juice to take home and it is such a rewarding project because you have had the hands on experience with turning a load of apples into an abundance of delicious apple juice.

Here are some more video topics which will be appearing over the next coming weeks on this series:

• Scything and haymaking by hand
• How to apply and reapply mulch effectively
• Using hay and grass in the garden
• Keeping pigs for less
• Building healthy soil for the garden over winter

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