Apple picking and making cider at Dry Arch

We made our way down the canal path to the community orchard at Dry Arch growers in Bathampton to help their team with the autumn harvest.

We were really pleased to welcome Maryam along to her first GoodGym run. It was really good to have you join us and we hope you will return again to help us out!

There were several tasks to do on this crisp autumnal day. First we had to pick the bramley apples from the big tree by the entrance. The apples on lower branches were fine and we managed to do those quite quickly - the challenge came with the branches above! The tree is about 20m high so we had to use the extended apple pickers to carefully pluck them from the branches.

After we had picked the apples we washed them, pulped them and then pressed them. The apples we pressed will be mixed with a slightly sweeter variety to make cider! The cider is 'made' by allowing the juice of the apples to ferment and just sit there in the barrels for a few months. We must have been about 50 litres while we were there and the team were going long after we left them.

At the end of session we took the leftover apple pulp to feed to the chickens that live there. They enjoyed their sweet treat and ate right of our hands!

It was a very mindful morning and we all felt invigorated afterwards. Keep an eye out for more tasks at Dry Arch in the coming months!