What to do in the garden in August: Harvesting apples
Now is the time to harvest early apple varieties, says Stephen Desmond


Early apple varieties take us by surprise each summer, as our brains aren't ready for them until the autumn. Nonetheless, there are several worthy late-summer cultivars, among them the scarlet-flushed Worcester Pearmain. This apple suffers from a deserved reputation for tasteless flesh with the unwelcome texture of damp cotton wool when bought in a shop, but this is unfair, as it is intended not to be kept, but eaten straight off the tree, when its lovely, sweet, juicy, unassuming freshness makes the whole exercise worthwhile. Discovery and the well-named Beauty of Bath fall into the same category.
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Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
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