Visit to the National Fruit Collection

Today I visited the National Fruit collection at Brogdale, near Faversham in Kent. Brogdale also holds the "National collection of nuts"..... and the "National collection of plums". A wonderful 2 hour guided tour of the orchards. 3000 different varieties of apples, 300 different varieties of cherries... I was beguiled by the collection of QUINCE trees (the National collection). All quinces grown at Brogdale are bought and shipped to London exclusively for Fortnum & Mason.

I sneaked several windfall quinces.... as we speak, several pints of quince jelly are cooking gently on my stove. More to follow.