Today is Apple Day, celebrating the diversity of British apples so don't forget to pop to the shops and pick up an apple. And if you don't like your fruit covered in pocket lint, keep it safe with Stringativity's Fruit Sock knitting pattern.
There are more than 2,000 different kinds of apple, so there's a flavour to suit every taste. Common Ground organised the first Apple Day in 1990 as a response to the rapid loss of British orchards. From their website:
Data from Natural England shows that the orchard area throughout England has declined by 63% since 1950. Wales lost 94% between 1958 and 1992. For some counties the impact is devastating. Devon lost 89% of its orchards between 1946-2003 and Kent 92% during the same period.
In 2007 we imported nearly 70% of our apples (Defra Basic Horticultural Statistics 2008). Apples from the southern hemisphere and other far away places fill our supermarket shelves – even in autumn, the height of our apple season.
Anyone can organize an Apple Day event – perhaps next year there'll even be some knitting related ones!You can find out more on the Common Ground website and there's a good article at The Ecologist titled How to celebrate British apples which breaks it down into bite-size chunks.
