Three more bare-rooted apples trees arrived from Keepers Nursery yesterday: two Api Noir apples and a Coul Blush*. Ken has planted them in buckets, covered them in bubble wrap and placed them in the greenhouse with the heater turned on during the recent frosty nights. He plans to plant them as cordons along Miller Road — and harvest some new varieties of apples in two or three years' time.

*Britain's most northerly apple variety raised at Coul, Ross-shire in 1827. Described as gold with faint flush and sweet, soft cream flesh.