The record-breaking weather we’ve experienced throughout 2022 has impacted the harvest quality and quantity of the county’s crops, with the summer’s drought resulting in smaller vegetables than we’re used to seeing on supermarket shelves. But the conditions have proved ideal for apples, cultivating a bumper crop of delicious British apples and, hopefully, for one eight-year-old from Bristol, a record-beating fruit.
Florence Winch was having lunch at her godmother Val’s house near Pensford a few weeks ago when she spotted an unusually large apple growing on one of the old cooking apple trees in the garden. Not willing to wait for it to drop, she carefully picked the fruit, which weighs over half a kilo, and then set about trying to identify it.
Fortunately for this precocious forager, it seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree - her dad Patrick Winch has a background in cider manufacturing, and says he worked as a quality control tester for White Lightning, among other roles. Her grandfather Anthony Winch is also a bit of an expert in the field, being an apple collector from Herefordshire and an agriculture aid worker, who has even written a book about growing produce.
