Apples on the Bough (gouache style)

Most cultivated apples descend from wild trees in the Tian Shan mountains of Central Asia, and Britain has bred and kept a remarkable number of them. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale in Kent holds well over two thousand apple varieties. They fall into dessert apples such as 'Cox's Orange Pippin', 'Egremont Russet' and 'Discovery', and cookers like 'Bramley's Seedling'. The rootstock a tree is grafted onto decides how big it'll grow.

Bare-root trees go in between November and March, while they're dormant, and most need a partner variety flowering at the same time for good pollination. Mulch around the base in spring and give a general feed. After the natural June drop, thin crowded clusters to one or two fruits. Trained cordons and espaliers are pruned in August, freestanding trees in winter. Early apples are eaten straight from the branch; late keepers are picked in October, wrapped in paper and stored somewhere cool and dark.

Here a single branch hangs heavy with rosy apples, and a basket of produce sits beneath it. That's the point in the year when the tree gives back everything it has gathered since spring blossom. The weight of the bough and the waiting basket capture the turn from growing to gathering.