It might not sound as impressive as turning water into wine, apples are basically already food after all, but tuck into the delicious apple cake at The Canteen in Nailsworth, or enjoy the apple sauce with your pork at The Hog in Horsley, and you may have eaten apples from The Secret Acre.

Last year we turned our apples into test batches of juice and cider, with a view to scaling up production this year. But despite getting an industrial size press, the timing of our moving into The Secret Acre meant that our cider empire had to be largely put on hold for 12 months.

Panicked by the ripening apples, and overwhelmed by the unpacking and half finished house, we could not let the apples fall to the ground particularly knowing how delicious these apples tasted. So right at the end of October when the trees could no longer hold onto the apples we escaped the unpacking and swiftly picked them.

Some of this year’s crop was enjoyed by the pigs at St Werburghs City Farm where Paul is currently working. And not to be entirely defeated, thanks to a chance conversation in The Canteen, I was able to box up a fair part of the crop and swap it for meal credits at The Hog, a lovely pub with a great reputation for using local produce and serving delicious food. A result all round!