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Granny Smith descendant visits Canberra

Owen Pidgeon

Peter Dobinson and Emma Bonell-Balp pick ripe Granny Smith apples at Loriendale orchard.
Peter Dobinson and Emma Bonell-Balp pick ripe Granny Smith apples at Loriendale orchard.Supplied

It is not every day that you get to meet a direct descendant of a famous person, but if you have an orchard and grow apples then there is a slight chance. So we hosted a recent morning visit of Peter and Vivienne Dobinson to our orchard in the knowledge that Peter is one of the great-grandchildren of the famous Granny Smith of Ryde, Sydney.

Many Canberrans have tasted the delights of Dobinsons Bakery Café in Bunda Street, owned by Peter's daughter Sue. Sue took up the family tradition of baking which had been continued by one of Granny Smith's daughters, Alice Lyla Smith, who with her husband set up the Dobinsons of Rose Bay bakery in Sydney early in the 20th century. Emma Bonell-Balp came first to work as an au pair for the Dobinson family and is now helping us in our orchard for three months, so as to be able to extend her working holiday visa for another year.

Baking was in the blood of Maria Ann Smith, who arrived by ship from England to the shores of Sydney Harbour in 1830. Her husband Thomas first worked on the farm of a wealthy land auctioneer on a farm at Kissing Point Road. Then in 1855 they were able to establish their own farm with the purchase of two blocks of land in North Road, Ryde, amounting to 10 hectares. Their blocks were close to the well-known Field of Mars Common.

Granny Smith apples have been grown locally for decades after being introduced more than 50 years ago.
Granny Smith apples have been grown locally for decades after being introduced more than 50 years ago.Supplied
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With good access to water and with a little creek running through their land, they planted out an orchard and began to grow fruit and vegetables for the Sydney market. Ryde was one of the earliest orchard districts that serviced Sydney with apricots, peaches, grapes, apples and pears. For any grower to take their fruit and vegetables to market, they had to travel by horse and cart along roads that were rutted and often very muddy, or take a boat along the Parramatta River.

Maria Smith was a pie maker of repute. She would use her own fruit but would also buy other apple supplies from the main Sydney market. All peelings and scraps would be tossed onto the compost heap down by the creek, beyond the house garden. In 1868, Maria (now known to all in the district as Granny Smith) brought back some French crab apples from the Sydney markets. They were apples that had been shipped from Tasmania and they were fine for her pie making.

Over the following months, three little apple tree seedlings began to grow. It is not common to have a wild seedling tree produce something fine but she noticed that one of the trees yielded a fine green-skinned apple. The tree was nurtured and Granny Smith called in the local orcharding expert, E. H. Small, who concluded that this fine apple, with its distinctive tartness and fine keeping qualities, was indeed a very fine cooking apple.

Versatile: Granny Smiths can be pressed to make delicious juice.
Versatile: Granny Smiths can be pressed to make delicious juice.Supplied

Orchardists began to take cuttings to graft this new variety onto their existing trees. In 1891 it was entered under the name of Granny Smith Seedling into the Castle Hill Agricultural Show and won its first major prize. It was considered the best cooking apple on display. Government officers from the experimental station at Bathurst took note and set about establishing big plantings of this quality apple for the overseas market. Exports of the Granny Smith apple to Europe began in 1895.

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Over the next 50 years, cuttings were taken to many lands. Locally, they were planted into orchards at Pialligo and at Spring Range, just past Hall. One of the pioneer settlers in the Hall district, Mack Southwell, recounted collecting potash that would be sprinkled around each tree by the old orchardist Charlie Butt to “sweeten up the apples’'. One Granny Smith apple tree in Butt’s orchard produced a record crop of 15 cases of apples just after World War II. This is a record volume, considering commercial orchardists are very happy with a harvest of four cases per tree.

Granny Smith apples became one of the major apple varieties grown around Australia and then around the world. It held top spot in Australian production 10 years ago, totalling 77,000 tonnes in 2003. Since then plantings of Royal Gala, Pink Lady and Fuji have overtaken the production levels of this and other older apples.

As a young man, Peter Dobinson can remember walking the streets of Sydney enjoying the sweetness of a fully ripe Granny Smith apple. It can be baked, made into apple sauce, eaten fresh or pressed to make delicious apple juice. This is the beauty of this famous apple. If you buy a bright green, very under-ripe apple you are not doing justice to its distinctiveness. As with all other apples, if you leave a Granny Smith apple to ripen on the tree, it develops much flavour and sweetness. And it is one apple that benefits from the early frosts, to help with the sweetening process.

The residual tartness will linger a little. The May-harvested Granny Smith and Pink Lady apples will combine to produce a delectable apple juice. Some readers may have tasted the fine organic Loriendale apple juice made by crushing and lightly pressing the pulped apples.

We attended last Saturday the christening of little Millie Jane Conlin, aged one, the daughter of one of the best wedding photographers in Canberra, Mel Hill. Young Millie and her great-grandfather, Jack Begley, aged 88, both really enjoyed the taste of the freshly pressed organic apple juice made from Loriendale Granny Smith and Pink Lady apples.

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Apple juice will carry any purities or impurities, so it is very important to try to access only organic apple juice. Residual toxins in conventionally grown apples will become more concentrated when juice is made. Conventional apples have been rated by the United States Department of Agriculture as having one of the highest levels of residual toxins, so it is worth taking care about the sources of what you eat and drink.

Pork schnitzel rolls with apple and mustard

2 Granny Smith apples

3 tbsp olive oil

2 onions, sliced

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6 pork schnitzels

½ cup water

3 tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tbsp honey

Peel, core and slice the apples thickly. Preheat oven to 180°C. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a frypan and cook the apple and onion slices over medium heat, until golden brown and soft.

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Top each schnitzel with 2 tablespoons of the apple and onion mixture. Roll up the schnitzels and secure with toothpicks. Heat the remaining oil in the pan and add the pork rolls. Cook at medium temperature, rotating the rolls to brown them. Then place the schnitzel rolls in a baking tray and bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Add the water, mustard and honey to the meat juices in the frying pan and cook on a low to medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Stir constantly until thickened and smooth. Spoon the mustard sauce over the pork rolls and serve with roasted potatoes and your selection of other farm vegetables.

This week, in the garden:

  • Harvest your citrus, persimmons, feijoas and late-season apples before the birds arrive in search of an easy meal.
  • Plant out a new crop of shallots for a spring harvest by dividing up an existing clump and planting 12-15 centimetres apart. This will provide sufficient space for new clumps to grow. Do not plant too deeply, just to the depth of the small bulb.
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  • Plant out new rhubarb sets or divide well-established crowns and replant into a deep garden bed that has been enriched with lots of compost.
  • Harvest carrots only as you need them as the remaining crop will keep better in the ground.
  • Remove all remaining dead vegetable plants and add to the compost – apart from tomato plants that need to be disposed of. Dig over your garden beds that have been fallow, removing any weeds that have spread, including digging out all roots of couch grass.
  • Where possible, plant a green manure crop to lift the humus and nitrogen levels of the beds over the winter months, rather than just letting weeds grow.

Owen Pidgeon runs the Loriendale Organic Orchard near Hall

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