The Quince Orchard here at Fairy Wren Cottage is organic, bee friendly & a joy to be in!
It is a young orchard planted by Michael, Liliana and myself in the Winter of 2014. The trees were 1,2 and 3 years old at the time.
We have 22 quince trees in the Quince Orchard, plus 5 more quince trees growing in our Food Hedges and Back Orchard.
When the quince trees are in full blossom and there is a warm, gentle Spring breeze the garden smells divine, just like roasting quinces!
We grow 5 different Quince varieties that are mature enough to harvest each year:
Champion, Smyrna, Fullers, Van de Man & Pineapple. Each being that little bit different from each other.
In Winter 2020 we added two more quince varieties, Appleshaped and Portugal, they merely look like thin wispy sticks at the moment with a little foliage, but we are looking forward to the time when we can see the two new varieties fruit and flower, we'll add the photos when this happens.
Below, there is a brief description and photos taken from the 2019 harvest that may help guide you in learning a little more about the humble quince
and my free ebook is there too!
.
FAIRY WREN COTTAGE QUINCES
Fairy wren cottage
quinces
The Quince Orchard here at Fairy Wren Cottage is organic, bee friendly & a joy to be in!
It is a young orchard planted by Michael, Liliana and myself in the Winter of 2014. The trees were 1,2 and 3 years old at the time.
We have 22 quince trees in the Quince Orchard, plus 5 more quince trees growing in our Food Hedges and Back Orchard.
When the quince trees are in full blossom and there is a warm, gentle Spring breeze the garden smells divine, just like roasting quinces!
We grow 5 different Quince varieties that are mature enough to harvest each year:
Champion, Smyrna, Fullers, Van de Man, and Pineapple. Each being that little bit different from each other.
In Winter 2020 we added two more quince varieties: Appleshaped and Portugal. They merely look like thin wispy sticks with a little foliage at the moment, but we are looking forward to the time when we can see the two new varieties fruit and flower; we'll add the photos when this happens.
Below, there is a brief description and photos taken from the 2019 harvest that may help guide you in learning a little more about the humble quince
and my ebook is there too!
.
~ FAIRY WREN COTTAGE QUINCES ~
QUINCE KINDNESS. The 2020 Quince Harvest.
The 2020 harvest (late March/April/May) was called Quince Kindness. With everything going on in the world, Michael, Lil and I decided to give away as many quinces as we could and only sell to existing customers in the hospitality industry who buy our quinces and turn them into a product they then sell; we sold the quinces for the initial price we started selling the quinces for 5 years ago. It was an honesty system, we harvested the quinces following hygiene procedures, put them directly in the box and the person buying the quinces weighed them (to save us handling them again and it minimises contact) and payed online. There were boxes of quinces left outside our garden gate and a wave from afar as they were collected. I like this honesty system. If a customer weighed 15kg of quinces, we ask them to pay for 14kg, this is about generosity, good will - we want our customers to enjoy the whole process from buying our quinces to them making and selling or serving them.
Towards the end of the Quince harvest, we did a stocktake. We had given away over 150kg of quinces. We gave quinces to dog walkers who we see regularly walking past our cottage, to friends who have then made quince paste for their grandchildren, Michael gave them to customers, we’ve hung bags of quinces on our front fence to be collected by neighbours, as a thank you we left a big bag of quinces under a tree to be collected by someone who made a special trip to deliver something for us, Michael dropped boxes of quinces at friend's farm gates as a surprise as he drove through the valley to work, and we have left bags of windfall quinces at a friends farm gate who fed them to their pigs.
When people we gave the quinces to offered to pay for them the reply was simple:
Pay it forward. Do something kind for someone else.
Even if it is just smiling at a stranger in the supermarket, gentle acts of kindness help make the world a better place.
Our Quince Orchard is more than just about selling fruit.
Champion:
Ripens: March-April, mid season variety
Cooks to dark red flesh, lovely big pear shaped quince
Originally from the USA.
Fullers:
Ripens: Mid-Late April
Very yellow flesh with no grit.
Sweet guava fruity like aroma.
Cooks to a pale pink.
Originally from New Jersey USA about 1860
Pineapple
Ripens: March-April
Best for Jam, breaks down with long cooking, pale rosy pink.
Fruity pineapple aroma, comes through in the taste when cooked.
Originally from California USA about 1900.
Smyrna
Ripens: Early April
Very aromatic & firm when cooked.
Roasted flesh turns a lovely dark red, with stands rigours of slow cooking
Skin lighter lemon in colour (although I can find this hard to tell !) large pear shape
Originally from Turkey.
My research notes say popular with chefs!
Van De Man
Ripens: April
Squat, rounder much smaller quince and noticeably different to the other varieties we grow. Cooks to a pale orange colour (not like the pale pink). No grit & lovely spicy flavour.
QUINCE VARIETIES AVAILABLE:
We now harvest Smyrna, Champion, Van de Man, Pineapple and Fullers quinces each year.
Appleshaped and Portugal quince varieties are still too young to provide an abundance of fruit.
THE QUINCE ORCHARD IS HOME TO:
The Quince Orchard is home to Apricot and Sunshine the Buff Orpington Hens, and Daisy, Ta Dah and Loveheart the Indian Runner ducks. The duck bath water is emptied daily and waters the trees and their droppings break down to feed the soil. When we had a small flock of Heritage breed hens living in our Back Orchard, we would sometimes swap the ducks to the Back Orchard & the hens to the Quince Orchard, they enjoyed the change of scenery and pick at slugs & bugs the other flock may not like as much.
Head of pest control, the poultry keep all the bugs and slugs at bay.
We don't use any chemicals, herbicides or pesticides.
The ducks also share the Quince Orchard with Liliana's two guinea pigs whose hutch we move around the orchard several times a day. The guinea pigs are constantly grazing instead of us having to regularly mow the grass. The Quince Orchard only sees the lawn mower a couple of times a year. Saving on time, petrol, lawn mower maintenance, the guinea pigs fertilise the soil with their droppings - better for the environment and the guinea pigs are such sweet animals to care for .
When we first shifted to Fairy Wren Cottage Michael couldn't break the ground with a crowbar and only scrappy weeds grew in the Quince Orchard. Now, thanks to this system with the ducks, hens & guinea pigs the orchard is abundant & thriving.
QUINCE BLOSSOM
Springtime in the Quince Orchard, the Fairy Wrens & Silvereyes flit from branch to branch, the Grey Shrike Thrush is heard singing it's beautiful song from the tops of the trees and you can smell the Quince blossom.
The quince flower petals are the softest pink and the creamiest white, to some they look like tiny ballet dresses the fairies have washed and hung upside down to dry on the branches. Enchantingly beautiful Springtime in the Quince Orchard is looked forward to all year.
The Quince Blossom photographed is taken in the Spring of 2019 to help show the slight differences between the Quince varieties.
QUINCES FOR SALE
Quinces are available for sale during the harvesting season of March through to late April. We deliberately hand pick what is actually ripe during those weeks instead of marking the calendar & picking everything at once that may not be quite ready. It is such a slow process growing this fruit from seeing it bud & flower right through to the fruit setting & ripening, we are mindful not to rush the final stages.
We are generous when weighing quinces for orders; there is the Contact Page below or @fairywrencottage on Instagram if you would like to be in touch.
I hope to get back to you as soon as possible.
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