Bite into a fresh taste of autumn in Dunkeld
Dunkeld’s Big Apple Day can’t be pipped this Saturday.
Wonderful fruit grown in the community orchard plot is ready for harvest and everybody’s getting involved.
This will be the second to final day of Dunkeld and Birnam Unplugged 2017, an exploration of climate change ideas focused at the Taybank, which began on Sunday 3 and runs until Sunday 10.
On Big Apple Day families bring their own picnics to the orchard on the approach to Dunkeld from the A9 - and all sorts of community groups use the occasion to raise funds for themselves, supplying innovative activities.
From 11.30am to 2.30pm there will be young musicians, face painting, a bug hunt, up-cycle, tombola and kids’ activities.
And volunteers will be organising picking and running a tea and cake stall.
At the Orchard, “Pick me” signs have gone up on the early plums, inviting takers.
Tomorrow’s orchard invitation promises to allow people to try varieties now vanished from your typical commercial supermarket produce aisle. It marks a revival of ‘real’ apples, plums and pears in Perthshire.
“We should be picking Victoria plums and early apples such as Discovery, Worcester and Bramley,” said community orchard volunteer Katherine Melville. “Keep your eye on the Orchard fence, where we tell you what’s ready.”
“From September 15, onwards till the end of October, on Friday afternoons 2-4pm, we shall be harvesting apples and putting them at the fence for people to help themselves.”
To those who live nearby, she added: “If you are free please come and help pick. Many hands make light work.”
The time for Perthshire’s own apples is here