A, who taught me and his daughter how to graft apples 20 weeks ago, came round this afternoon, with daughter, to collect his tree. The five we grafted onto MM106 rootstock are all thriving (and this is the tree I will probably keep). The five we grafted onto M26 dwarfing rootstock are not. One of those is dead and the others are dormant. Another local apple expert, R, told me to wait a few months but A had no time for dwarfing rootstock even as we were doing the grafting and possibly even less now.

We chatted about registering and naming this apple, which no-one has yet been able to identify even though I've given it to several growers to taste. 

I posted some of the apples a year ago to yet another expert, who then replied:
"Got apples through very exciting! Interesting Apple as seem to have some elements of others in it ie one has shape of Devonshire quarranden the strawberry lenticels of the beauty of bath and smell and also partial shape as well of a discovery! But if it’s [bred it is undoubtedly] made up of ... other earlies!"

Then a bit later, "Cut open and eaten yummy!"

If I am the first to register it then I can name it but I haven't yet thought of a name that I think suits it. A is about to plant his tree at R's farm (the apple community here is not large) in Hampton Gay, which we agreed would be a great name for it.


In other news, there has been a great deal of food swapping with my Afghan neighbours recently. Yesterday M gave me a huge pile of flat beans and sugar snap peas that she'd bought at the market but didn't know how to cook. So this afternoon I made a lasagne for the family with organic halal lamb and cooked the beans and peas to go with it. We've agreed that once the children go back to school we'll teach each other how to cook.

In among all this, Tivoli's and my brother dropped in. The most sociable day I've ever had in this house.