If you are faced with baskets overflowing with ripe apples from your trees and have no idea what to do with them, worry not. There are at least two apple juice producers in Oxfordshire who will process them for you — Millets Farm, at Frilford, and Waterperry Gardens, near Wheatley.

I discovered this during Eynsham’s Fruit Festival at St Leonard’s Church Hall, when I met Chris Lanczak from Waterperry Gardens, who manages five acres of orchards that contain 22 different kinds of apples. He explained that by getting your apples juiced professionally they will be pasteurised and therefore safe to drink for months to come. If you juice them yourself, without putting the juice through this process, it will only last a week and then start fermenting. It is essential, therefore, that juice is pasteurised — not an easy task in a domestic kitchen. It is something that can only be undertaken by the professionals.

Chris says that he and his team will be delighted to turn your surplus apple crop into something tasty for a small fee. He calls it an end-of-day job, to be attended to once they have juiced their own consignment of apples, of which they have tons.

Chris was attending the fruit festival in the capacity of apple expert. His job was to identify the countless apples that people had brought into the hall. He explained that while people know the type of apple trees growing in their garden if they actually planted them, those moving into a new home with mature trees often have no idea what they are. As there are more than 2,300 varieties of dessert and cooking apples growing in the British Isles, this is no easy task. It is a satisfying one, however, particularly if Chris is offered one of the old varieties, that could eventually disappear if cuttings are not taken before it is too late. He likens this job of tasting and identifying the apples that are brought to him to that of a wine connoisseur looking at colour, aroma and taste. Unlike wine, though, he has shape to help with the identification too.

The festival was devised by members of Green TEA (Transition Eynsham Area) who are encouraging local residents to make the most of this year’s harvest and the wild foods that can be found in nearby hedgerows.

Sue Raikes, who helped organise the event, explained that Eynsham used to be an orchard, indeed the one-time apple capital of Oxfordshire. While that was some considerable time ago, the Green TEA movement are hoping they can transform it back into an orchard again. They have been doing this by planting apple trees with an Eynsham connection, such as the Eynsham Dumpling, Eynsham Challenger and Jennifer Wastie and others propagated by W.F. Wastie of Eynsham between the 1920s and the 1940s. This year the group have already planted ten apple and two plum trees. Some have been planted at the edges of the village playing field, at the Fish Ponds area which was once the site of Eynsham Abbey and on the footpath across the A40, just opposite the Wasties’ original orchard.

The aim is to encourage us all to plant an apple tree (or two) in our own gardens and take part in a fruit share during harvest time. Siemens, the business that designs and manufactures superconductor magnets in Eynsham, have already responded by planting six apple trees beside their premises. There are also old varieties of fruit trees, including crab apple and wild cherry, now flourishing in the Eynsham’s Millennium Wood, where more than 2,500 trees were planted in 2002.

The fruit festival was attended by more than 500 villagers and declared a great success — not least in helping to bring out the community spirit which the TEA group is generating.

One of the topics of conversation there revolved around October 21, a date selected by Common Ground who initiated this special day to celebrate the apple harvest in 1990.

It has now evolved into a very popular day. But as I pointed out last week, apples are ripening earlier and earlier. Most of those attending the festival agreed that there would be hardly any on their trees by mid-October. The TEA group are also encouraging those who have large gardens and land lying dormant at the moment, to invite gardening enthusiasts to turn it into a plot yielding vegetables and fruit.

This scheme overcomes the need for more allotments, which are now in short supply, and offers the householder a chance to share the produce in exchange for use of their land. The group also hopes to encourage sponsors for their growing schemes, which in time really could turn Eynsham into an orchard.

If you would like to know more about the Green TEA group, you can contact Sue Raikes on 01865 882130.