Crab Apples

Crab Apples can be a very nutritious and flavoursome food if prepared in the correct way. They can be used to create wines, jellies and even cheeses. The crab apple is quite different to the traditional apple; the fruit is a lot smaller and is quite sharp in taste. You wouldn’t normally eat a crab apple straight from the tree because of the sharp taste, though if the fruit is very ripe it will taste quite nice and sweet.

There are normally two different varieties of crab apple, one type is called Sylvestris, quite a little and round apple which will turn yellow when ripe. This type is native to Britain. The other type is called Mitis, which is larger and more rounded then the other variety.

Crab Apples are usually ready from around late September, but due to our changing weather system they will be ripe enough to collect now. They can usually be found in hedgerows or single trees growing in the wild, they like to grow in old woodlands where they are undisturbed.

It is highly recommended that you start to collect the crab apples from the trees around this sort of time when they seem to be very ripe and mainly very red in colour. If they aren’t collected soon they will become over-ripe and birds/insects will happily eat them, else they will just fall and probably rot on the ground.
We will be updating this blog with an excellent crab apple wine which will be very simple to make, so try to collect a few bagfuls of crab apples ready for the recipe.