apple diversity

In recent years, gardening and home produced food became fashionable again, a trend which can also be seen in contemporary art. From community garden projects as a public art event to transportable mini-gardens in prams and carrier bags, gardening with its social and environmental aspect provides an ideal subject.
Celia Spouncer combines her professional background as a landscape gardener and ecologist with an art practice, a rare crossover. She currently restores an orchard at Hazelbank for Newtownabbey Borough Council as a commission for her office; as an artist, she works on community garden projects. One such public garden with sunflowers and courgettes can be found close by in one of the concrete squares in front of the University of Ulster. For apple diversity, she collected an unexpected large variety of apples from public and private gardens and orchards in Northern Ireland. A harvest which is not only stunning in its number but also visually beautiful and of course very tasty.
This weeks headline ‘How a soggy summer led to the biggest apple harvest in history’, reminds us to the often forgotten seasons and the produce of agriculture.
That locally grown apples are hardly ever found in our shops, is the sad result of food standardization, market pressure and lack of consumer demand for local goods.
How an apple could taste and look like can be seen and experienced here. How it could be grown in public orchards, well, get active.
For more information on community gardens see
internationalvillageshop
abbeygardens

Apple varieties
1. Ard Cairn Russet
2. William Grump
3. Barnhill Pippin
4. Ecklinvill
5. Farrel
6. White Crofton
7. Irish peach
8. Eight Square Kill
9. Greasy Pippin
10. Dockney
11. John Downie Grab
12. Bramley Seedling
13. Jupiter
14. Granny Smith
15. Luogh Tree Wexford
16. Sungold
17. Sunset
18. Tom Pitty
19. Red Falstaff
20. Greasy Pippin
21. Pearmain
22. Kerry Pippin
23. Yellow Pitcher
24. Scarlet Croften
25. Golden Delicious
26. St. Cecilia
27. Grenadier
28. Clear Heart
29. Summer John