Cheers folks - really appricate you all sharing this wealth of information
Nay, make your own, much easier for turning it.
Here is an idea of what I'm talking about.
However, I didn't spend any money making mine - I made 3, turn the organic matter from the first bay, to the second, then the third.
I just tied together with string/an old washing line some free pallets from roofing works, lined the "boxes" with netting from an old trampoline.
I get grass cuttings from neighbourgs, raid the recycling bins for carton - Amazon are the best, they are all compostable, add my own weeds and food waste.
If I'm short of grass, I'll collect what the council leaves behind after cutting it.
This season I didn't have to buy any compost
Thanks - love the idea in principle, however the existing bin is at the end of the garden in the occupied territory that adjoins my garden and only I (and the landlord) have access to, but isn't actually mine.. so I figure adding a like bin is less potentially offensive than creating my own structure down there; as much as this appeals.
The existing bin is a big, black type that's pretty common and regularly come up for a tenner / free on Marketplace, so I'll bide my time and see if I can score one locally. That said since the grass hasn't been regularly mown (thankfully given my lack of ability it's been so dry so it hasn't needed it) the contents of the bin's composted down pretty well and now has an amount of space in the top despite my topping it up with rotten apples / food waste..
I think it's best to keep the grass around the base of the tree short. I think it's
codling moth that lurk in the long grass and then attack the fruit.
Thanks - from the link it appears to be exactly what the problem is. This is heartening as the tree at home bears a lot of fruit but shows similar issues - my mum thought it was a blight affecting the whole tree but this has given some hope that they might be salvageable... not that we need any more apples!
Now's probably the time to take down the lanky, sparse grass that remains although the family strimmer remains out of action; I've been meaning to take a look for a long time - maybe I'll manage to pull my finger out this weekend.
So... fruiting is now in full swing. At a guess I've probably already had the equivalent of a couple of carrier bags of apples in windfalls from both trees. Thanks perhaps to the long grass the apples are in a pretty good state when collected from the floor; parasites notwithstanding. The fruits seem to still be getting larger / better quality and the branches are still heavy with so many more.
It seems the bigger of the tree is providing cooking apples (maybe 3" in diameter and mostly green) while the smaller has "eaters" at maybe 1.5-2" in diameter, turning red as they mature. They taste a bit like Cox's perhaps, with a fairly mild flavour. My mum reckons they might be Discovery..
A lot of them do seem to be affected by what I now know to be codling moth larvae thanks to
@annedonnelly's insight, although if quartered and cored they're fine to eat.
Because I hate waste I've been trying to palm off the apples on anyone who'll have them. last weekend I left some in 1kg strawberry trays out the front of the flat; fully expecting them to be still there when I returned. Instead it appears that a pitched battle may have occurred with all gone, one tray missing and the remainders strewn into disarray
Another tray went the night I left it out (irritatingly the tray itself too, so I now have little to put more in) and I've just delivered another carrier bag to work as a friend colleague is keen to cook with some. I've noticed a big fruit box outside one of the houses up the road, so if possible I'll snaffle this to allow me to offer some more.
In other news I've had a sizeable paper bag's worth of Damsens off the bush which has now apparently come to the end of this year's fruiting - these went to my mum who's cooked them down into some mush to go onto her desserts.
Sadly I evidently spoke too soon about the hazelnuts as I've since found a lot on the floor with rodent damage and seen one of the little grey b*stards barking at me from the top of the tallest tree in the garden. However, I've still managed to collect a 400g strawberry punnet's worth of green nuts from the floor which are now in a kitchen cupboard in the hope they'll ripen. I suspect that while there are unfortunately squirrels in the area, there aren't enough to consume absolutely everything on the tree.
Outside of the garden blackberries are now locally abundant and I've picked three or four jars full; turned into more dessert-mush by mother and enabling my newfound addiction to fruit and greekish youghurt combined with discount strawberries and blueberries from the shops.
Since I've move in I've done very little to the garden other than tidy fallen fruit and butcher an invasive elder, but every time I'm in there I'm struck with gratitude for having such a natural, peaceful place to call mine
