How about them apples? Foraging for Pippins in Clyde Valley

The valley’s rich heritage of nurturing orchards stuffed with dozens of varieties of apples was eventually chewed up and spat out by supermarkets, cheap imports and changing tastes. 

Now, however, as apple harvest season builds to a peak, fresh efforts are underway to encourage consumers, gardeners and cooks to rethink how we buy, eat and grow the humble apple. 

Just days ago, a group of foragers explored one of the few thriving orchards at the heart of the Clyde Valley, an area which once supplied the central belt with crate after crate piled high with juicy apples bearing names like Scotch Dumpling, James Grieve – named after their 19th century apple breeder - and White Melrose, plums, pears and soft fruits.

As well as looking back to an age when the Clyde Valley’s fruit trees covered hundreds of hectares of land, provided work and even influenced local culture through songs and harvest celebrations, the foragers discovered how to take advantage of the apple trees’ crops. 

The event also focused on efforts in the area to revive orchards, and ensure future generations can enjoy at least a flavour of the once glorious apple blossom which swathed the valley in colour each spring and a taste of homegrown fruits.

The apple walk was part of Scotland’s first Foraging Fortnight, a new festival featuring a wide range of food and outdoor events across five regions: from Lanarkshire’s apple orchards, to foraging for seaweed on Moray’s beaches and exploring traditional plant-based medicines in Orkney. Foraging programmes of events will also take place across Forth Valley and Lomond, and in Fife. 

Throughout the festival, participants foraged for and learn about medicinal plants, how to cook with wild ingredients and indulge in feasts made from foraged food. 

As well as fungi hunts, hedgerow and wildflower walks, the Lanarkshire programme offered foragers the chance to explore Kirkfieldbank Community Orchard, where more than 140 trees have been planted by Clyde Valley Orchards Cooperative Limited, which represents the remaining apple growers in the area. 

The event, according to the organisation’s director Duncan Arthur, who lead the walk, aimed to highlight a lost age of apple-growing and attempts to keep alive a flavour of some of the area’s apple industry and its social impact. 

The valley, he says, was once richly decorated with the sweet-smelling blossoms and fruits of countless trees.

“Apples in Scotland go away back to Roman times when they were introduced, but their hey day was about 100 years ago when there was a marked increase in the land given over to orchards,” he says. 

“They grew Victoria plums which suited area well. Scott’s jam-makers were in Carluke, and crops of gooseberries were used for their pectin to make strawberry jam.

“There were strawberries, soft fruits, damsons, and then came plums, apples and pears.”

Hundreds of orchards sprung up in large estates, delivering fruit to jam producers and markets. At the dawn of the 20th century, there were more than 307 hectares of commercial orchards throughout the Clyde and Avon Valley.

Growers had found the valley’s sheltered slopes, well-drained soils and moderate rainfall ideal for fruit growing. While the location - handy for large areas of population – meant they could easily transport their stock to fruit markets and shops. 

However the closure of railways followed by the 1970s arrival of supermarkets with their demands for perfect-shaped fruits, cheaper imports, changing demand for sweeter, crisper, prettier fruit, saw many orchards wither and the land go fallow.

The apple industry, which as well as providing jobs and income to the area brought cultural aspects in songs, stories and art, crumbled. 

A recent study of 215 of Clyde Valley’s orchards sites found just over half were still intact, covering an area of just over 70 hectares. But while there was still significant fruit grown in the area, most was not used, with around 50ha of orchard lost or abandoned. 

Of the trees that remained, many were aged with most orchards found to have less than 30 trees remaining. 

However an effort by the Co-operative has led to new trees being planted in private orchards and the Kirkgatefield Community Orchard Juice from the crops is now collected and sold to help fund further planting.

However, Mr Arthur adds that the notion of the area once again providing significant input to the nation’s apple harvest is unlikely.

“Our overall objective is to return the character and environmental benefits that came with the orchards and not lose any more of what were traditional orchards to development and neglect.

“Different native varieties of apples is a nice thing to have, but what is really important to the area and the environment is to have trees which support other things like pollination, bugs, fungus and mosses.”

According to Wendy Barrie, cook and publisher of the Scottish Food Guide, the loss of much of Scotland’s apple heritage has impacted on the way we cook as well as eat. 

“Scotland was world-famous for our apples and the orchards in places like Clyde Valley as well as at Newburgh in Fife and the Carse of Gowrie between Perth and Dundee, supplied an incredible range of varieties.

“What we get the supermarkets today is poor in comparison,” she says. 

The bountiful crops found their way into countless dishes, relishes and jams which helped add flavour to Scots’ plates long after the last apple had been picked.

“Back in days gone by we didn’t have lemons from Sicily to provide flavour and sharpness, and apples were an important part of cooking,” she adds.

“They also provided pectin as a jellifying agent for jams, and there were many uses for the apples they grew.”

She adds: “There’s no one answer as to why our orchards have gone. Supermarkets, world trade, we import cheap appeals from New Zealand and France, while we could be growing our own. “

“We need to keep heritage varieties alive.”