This week, the joys of being a member of the farming fraternity!
Quite apart from enjoying the unseasonally warm weather, especially when walking the dog, The English Apple Man has been out and about visiting some of his fruit farming friends.
On Wednesday a visit to Andrew and Alayne Burr at their 'Popes Hall' farm at Sandway, near Lenham in Kent overlooking the Kentish Weald in one direction and looking towards the North Downs in the other, provided an illuminating and very enjoyable couple of hours.
Their farm extends to some 120 acres, with 25 acres of apples, a small flock of sheep and an area of arable land which is rented out to neighbouring farmers. The work force is very much 'Andrew & Alayne' augmented by Eastern European students for apple thinning and at harvest time. When creating a new orchard, a specialist contractor marks out the field and puts the posts in place, but they plant all their own trees, and carry out the ancillary tasks of tree tying and fitting rabbit guards.
By doing all the work themselves they manage to make a living from what is a relatively modest area of top fruit. They market their fruit through SGT (Southern Growers & Traders) the fruit is stored on farm in their new storage complex, built into the 'old piggery' and the fruit is packed at an SGT packhouse and sold to Tesco.
From their farmhouse, which they built in 1989 the view across the Weald of Kent is quite spectacular; by coincidence we could see a large fire in the distance and speculated about where it was. BBC South East News cleared that one up, it was a nasty fire at Fridays Chicken Farm in Frittenden in Kent, some 8 miles away as the 'crow flies'
After a brief look at the new cold stores; a block of three, built three years ago and an additional one built in 2011, Andrew took me on a 'whistle stop' tour of the orchards in his recently acquired Polaris Ranger. First stop, an 2.7 hect Gala orchard planted January 2008, then to a 3.7 hect Gala/Cox orchard planted in 1998 before a visit to the new 1hect Gala Shniga orchard planted with Italian trees of very high quality.
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These knipboom trees have a generous amount of feathers (young branches) and Andrew is very pleased with the quality of these trees and at a planting distance of 3.5 metres 
between the rows and 1.25 metres in the row he expects the branches will quickly fill the space between the trees and achieve an impressive yield.
The farm is about 300ft above sea level and has superb loam soil with a depth of 1.5 to 2 feet throughout. Frost is 'not' a problem due to the excellent 'air' drainage, but hail can be, and part of the farm suffered from hail damage in 2011. Hail is a cruel enemy for apple growers and as Andrew said, hail insurance is expensive and after any claims, new premiums can becomes exorbitant. He and Alayne are seriously thinking about erecting some hail netting on their 'prime' orchards. 
A young 0.625 Hectare (1.5 acre) Bramley orchard planted in January 2011 has settled in well. It is a solid plant of Bramley with pollination provided by Malus trees planted between the Bramleys at a ratio of 1 in 9. The Malus cleverly secured with a bamboo cane fixed between the adjacent Bramley trees.
Down on the lower slopes we looked at the older Cox and Bramley orchard. The Bramley trees their first planting back in 1985. Some of the stronger, older Bramley trees are destined for grubbing in the very near future. Strong growth is characteristic of the older Bramley's in general and Andrew has used the technique of making a chain saw cut into the trunk to inhibit growth; apparently with not much success.
We looked at the area of Bramley they are currently pruning, where Andrew removes the stronger branches with a chain saw and then he and Alayne finish the detailed work with hand saw and secateurs.
After our orchard visits we enjoyed a coffee and a 'natter' in the farmhouse kitchen. This one of the special treats of farming; we always congregate in the kitchen, and as so often there is always a fascinating story to be told. Family and farming stories fascinate The English Apple Man, as there is so much to be learnt about the history of our countryside and the people who make up our farming fraternity!
Neither Andrew or Alayne have a long history of farming in their blood, indeed a military background exemplifies their parental history. Andrew's father David Served in the army in World War 2 in the Royal Artillery and after a period in France found himself in Singapore when the Japanese war machine overran British forces, resulting in his incarceration in the dreaded Changi Prison where he was one of the prisoners forced to build the notorious Burma railway.
Due to his good fortune; he was at the time in prime physical condition , and his inherent fitness enabled him to survive the cruel treatment handed out by the Japanese. On release at the end of the war his weight was only six stone!
For those interested there is a book out at the moment called The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart. He was born in the same year as David and it gives a graphic account of what those brave men endured.
After the war David Burr came under the patronage of his Uncle Eddie who worked for Style & Winch Brewery; later to be taken over by Courages, on the company farm at Buston Manor at Hunton in Kent. This healthy outdoor life suited David and he eventually took over the management of the farm . On retirement he acted as a consultant, purchasing hops for the brewery.
The Medway Brewery, St Peter's Street, Maidstone, Kent was built by William Baldwin in 1806. The company was known as "Baldwin and Holmes" in the 1850s, as "Holmes and Style" during the 1860s and as "A F Style and Company" from 1880. It was amalgamated with E Winch and Sons Limited, of the Chatham Brewery, Chatham, Kent, and incorporated as "Style and Winch Limited" on the 17th March 1899.
Alayne's parents were both in The RAF and while serving at Detling Aerodrome in World War 2 her mother Josephine was one of the few women to be awarded the Military Medal for bravery when she helped rescue victims of an air raid.
On retirement, her parents settled into pig farming and in 1977 bought Popes Hall Farm in partnership with two of their children, where in 1983 with the help of another pensioner they built the pig unit, mixing the concrete by hand, daily completing the mixing and laying of 10 tons of concrete; not 10 tonnes of ready mix, but shovelling 10 tons of ballast & cement into a mixer each day and laying it.
All this concrete then had to be removed by Andrew & Alayne and the levels of the building altered to enable the new cold stores to have adequate height.
Hard work, and commitment, is clearly something that runs in their 'family genes'
A final interesting 'snippet' Andrew told me he and his good friend Clive Edmed first met at Hadlow College where both were tutored by my old friend and mentor Roger Worraker.
Andrew speculates on how many of Roger's students are still farming today, with so many growers giving up since those days (30-40 years ago) when our 'Fruit Farming' industry could count on between 1,000 & 2,000 fruit farms still operating?
"I will ask him"
Take care
The English Apple Man