05/09/2026
It’s September, the first days of Autumn, or Fall.. in this case ‘windfall’.
Crabapple jelly comes to mind immediately, bringing me back to my mother’s kitchen with the beautiful aroma of crabapples simmering in the big jam saucepan. I had picked the crabapples earlier that day up in Dalystown where there were several bountiful crabapple trees in the hedgerows surrounding the old house.
I had gathered up the windfalls, and brought them home in a sack. There was a lot of work to do, washing, coreing and chopping them, then the wait while the boiled apple mush in a muslin bag suspended between the legs of an upended stool, dripped clear, pale-crimson crabapple juice into a pot, before it was set and sealed in jars, for consumption during the winter, spread on toast and drizzled on pork chops!
I just loved this description I heard on radio this morning, when a lady was talking about crabapples that have fallen to the ground during a storm and are scattered under the apple tree.
‘Windfall crabapples scattered under the tree, like an interrupted game of snooker!’
Story; Brian Nolan Walking Tours of Galway
Photos; various on Facebook
