Early Blossom in the Orchard

After a long, very wet winter which caused flooding throughout the Cotswolds and the nation, the arrival of Spring couldn't come soon enough at Broadway Press. As a cider maker, the first sight of apple blossom is eagerly anticipated and will never cease to create great excitement for the year ahead; a new cider making season has just begun!

Amid the Coronavirus lockdown, while so much of life as we knew it sits patiently still, the weather began to warm up in early April and continued to rise throughout the month to temperatures which would satisfy us in mid summer. All of a sudden, those early buds on the apple trees burst into life and within 3 weeks the orchard was in full bloom!

If ever we needed further evidence of our changing climate, it's a stark reminder to see apple blossom at this time. The Dunsby family who own the orchard have been growing apples on this site for 70 years, and expect to see full blossom around mid-May. They've NEVER seen blossom in April! We're all crossing our fingers that the warming climate will mean no late frosts either, but when producing natural products like cider and apple juice, we have to work with whatever mother nature throws at us.

In the meantime, it's a joy to behold being present in the orchard at this time, a world of it's own which caters for all your senses. Who couldn't resist leaning gently into the bloom to experience that delicate aroma, which in 6 months time might just carry through into the first cider press of 2020? Cheers to that.

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