As always we will have our huge range of apples on offer to taste and buy, by the pound or by the box. Take a leisurely walk around our 4 acres of orchards with our Grey Faced Dartmoor lambs roaming around, acting as lawn mowers ! Then come back to enjoy cooking demonstrations out on the patio, with James and Jez, two of our long standing chefs, showing you some interesting options in the kitchen when it comes to apple season. Sample some of our homemade chutneys that I have been working on this week, one being an old secret family recipe, highly recommended ! Also new this year is our 'Hog Roast'. This means a 6am start for me to ensure things are up and cooking for the 8-10 hours it will take. I'll then be carving from the spit the very finest pork we could find from our rare breed 'Cornish Lop' pigs, all served up with home baked rolls, homemade apple sauce or that rather special chutney. You can then wash it all down with the very finest ciders available to taste and buy from Cornish Orchards and Westons Cider along with a range of apple juices, but more on that in a minute. Finally our other new addition this year is the Kids Corner, where we will have apple bobbing, face painting, toffee apples and lots more to keep the little ones amused. All are welcome and of course the event is free, so please come along and join in our celebration of the English apple season !

Sadly, it does seem to be the case that few people go out and pick apples. We have run special offers, yet still very few takers. We have run 'Apple Scrumps' as part of our school tour programme with great results. The enjoyment on the children's faces really makes me wonder why more parents or schools don't get involved. We even have a 1 ton give away to the schools each year, but still few takers. So if we can't even give them away we have to find a route for these beautiful apples. Thankfully, now we have taken the plunge into Trevaskis Farm apple juice, we have one. We have worked hard over the past few weeks gathering together all the excess Sunset, Katy, Greensleeve and Bramley apples. Then it was off to the press! The result is that this weekend we have the first showing of our two new apple juices, on taste and for sale, on  'Apple Day'. They will feature both in our farm shop and on the restaurant menu but please come along and give us your verdict and be the first to taste this new Trevaskis delight. They are so fresh that we don't even have the labels yet, but will of course be on hand to tell you all about it. And already in the pipeline for next year is Trevaskis Farm Cider...can't wait !

It also seems to be gathering a small cult following of people regularly turning up to buy these tender, new season roots. And if you think about it, as I did, where do you, or have you, actually seen it on sale ? Not actually a member of the artichoke family, nor does it have anything to do with Jerusalem! It is, in fact, a member of the sunflower family and its name is thought to originate from the word girasole, Italian for sunflower. With its wonderful nutty, earthy flavour it can be grated into salads, used in mashed with other root vegetables or served in a cream sauce. Why not try it thinly sliced entwined with wilted spinach and lemon butter or use to make a great flavour through soups. The small shoots you can see me holding in the picture are actually from earlier this year, now ready they are similar in appearance to root ginger. The variety we grow has a very smooth skin which makes them quite easy to prepare. If you want to see them growing you can find them just below the 'Organic Kitchen Garden' standing over 10ft tall and just start to show their lovely stary yellow flowers.