The Ancient Art of Moon Gardening
As handed down by
R.John Harris ~ Head Gardener
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Cornwall Beauties
John Harris, admiring the beautiful Ben's Red apple.
The apple was grown in West Cornwall in the early 1840's or perhaps even earlier. It ripens from the end of August, but it is not a good keeper. It is know as a 'bi-annual cropper, my 2008 crop is spectacular, I expect the crop of 2009 will be much less astounding. This apple will grow off it's own root stock, a gardener does not have to graft it. If pruned, you can start cuttings from that. This tree I started in 1992-3m from cuttings I took off another tree. RJH.
{Photos Courtesy of John & Olive Harris}
Not all of Cornwall's Beauties are apples, here we find John in the sunflower patch at Tresillian's famed walled-kitchen garden. Above, one of John's prize-winning Dahlias, shown here in his private garden.
{Photo courtesy of Marc Hill}
An overflowing basket of beautiful apples,
originally re-established and nurtured by the loving hands of John Harris at Tresillian House
Continuing our tour of Tresillian's apple orchard, we find John Harris showing us the beautiful apple named Lady's Fingers.
When mature, this apple looks like 4 delicate lady's fingers, thus the name. The secret of this very ancient apple is that it was used to make soft and sweet ciders for ladies. It is a beautiful baking apple, usually weighing in at 1/2 to 3/4 pound each. RJH
Here we are with John, under the beautiful Yellow Pear Apple tree.
The Yellow Pear apple was the traditional cider apple in the Westcountry, 180 - 200 years ago. On those farms where farmers' staple diet consisted of cider, apple pies and pasties, one would always find the Yellow Pear apple. It is a very sweet apple when ripe, and it drops very quickly at that time. RJH
{Photo Courtesy of Marc Hill}
This beautiful picture was taken in 2006 by free-lance Photographer Marc Hill, during a photo shoot for the article about John Harris originally published in the Telegraph, and is used here with Mr. Hill's very kind permission.