17/10/2026
As we approach national Apple Day (21st October) we introduce to you this week Julie Bailey, another of our producers, Apple Natural, also part of the Tamar Grow Local team and to those that have met her at our Community juicing days, Julie Apples !
In 2016, after studying local maps and seeing that trees once lined their land, Julie and her husband started planting a Heritage orchard, a range of Tamar Valley varieties, different shapes, sizes, colours and flavours that celebrate our apple history. Inspired by local artist Mary Martin who, with her husband James Evans, have spent many years rediscovering and preserving local apple varieties, the orchard is now home to a collection of over 300 fruit trees, over 60 Tamar Valley apple varieties, along with quince, medlar, plum, pear, cherry and crab apple trees.
From tree beginnings (and the help of Mary Martin’s orchard), inspired by a busy hungry toddler that needed endless snacks, with a single dehydrator in her kitchen Julie started to turn those apples into handmade apple fruit leathers - Apple Shreds - with no added sugar just the natural goodness of the fruit, more tangible, easier to manage and eat.
With the need to make more and sell their range of apples, Apple Natural is now based in a converted former Dartmoor Ranger’s hut alongside the orchard. Julie produces a range of apple fruit leathers using apples from their orchard, both 100% apple with additional flavours (all locally sourced) gooseberry, sea buckthorn, blackcurrant, raspberry, seaweed, strawberry, beetroot and blackberry. From little hands to big hands her customers are now both adults and children. Those small family hands have grown and the flavour choice has changed, but the hands can now hold more, eaten in a flash as teenage snacks need to be a lot bigger !
Traditional orchards play a crucial role in supporting ecosystem biodiversity by providing a haven for wildlife. Apple Natural’s orchard allows nature to thrive, with no chemicals used, hedgerows allowed to grow and a diverse habitat. The mix of trees, meadow, and hedgerows are a place for many wild plants like fox gloves, marsh orchids, cornflowers, poppies, red campion, yellow rattle, animals and insects. With all stages of ladybirds throughout the year, butterflies, dragonflies and newts in the pond. Leaving dead wood in older trees and those that have fallen to become phoenix trees that house all sorts of wildlife all year round….including nesting blackbirds. In the skies overhead are a multitude of birds including swallows, skylarks and at certain times of the day a swooping barn owl.
The Tamar Valley has always been known for its fruit production. Benefiting from south-facing slopes and a sheltered position against northeast winds. Fruit production in the Tamar Valley peaked between the 1850s and 1950s, when it was famous for its strawberries, cherries, apples, and pears, with individual villages and districts developing their own distinct fruit varieties.
Although 2,100 - 2,200 species of apple are recorded in Britain's National Fruit Collection at Brogdale, in Kent, only a handful of varieties can be found in our shops and a lot of those aren’t English varieties, even during the apple season.
Shop Apple Shreds and a selection of local apple varieties that change throughout the season on the Tamar Valley Food Hub, including Tregonna King, Mrs Bulls, Cornish Aromatic, Long Keeper, Pippins, Pear Apple, Newton Wonder and Star of Devon.
