Brookfields residents kept happy to their core with bumper apple crop

Residents at Brookfields Private Nursing Home in Derby have been living the good life after this year’s warm sunshine has produced a bumper apple crop along with one of its best ever seasons for fruit, veg and flowers.

Orchards across the UK have seen some of their best crops this year after ideal conditions created by 2024’s wet weather followed by the UK’s warmest summer on record and some helpful late season rain.

This year’s apple crop at Brookfields, Derby’s oldest nursing home on Burton Road, has followed the national trend with months of tasty fruit – resulting in delicious treats for the dinner table.

At Brookfields, which provides home-from-home residential care for around 30 residents, seven varieties of apple are grown on espaliers, which this year have produced a constant supply of fruit from August to October.

Brookfields chef Simon Pleydell has been busy in the kitchen using up the apples by making home-made crumbles, Eve’s Puddings, pies, and strudel.

Simon, who has worked as a chef for many years including catering for smart private dining clients in London, said it was very important for elderly residents to enjoy their food.

He said: “It’s really important that we provide a high standard of food for residents. I always ask them what they like to eat when they arrive. If meals look good and are made from fresh ingredients, it makes such a difference. Some of our guests need to have modified diets but it can still look and smell good and be presented well.

“As a chef it’s very satisfying to be able to use good quality fresh ingredients too – and you can’t beat fruit and veg that’s grown literally yards away from the kitchen.

“The difference in having fresh grown radishes, for example – it’s impossible to buy them tasting as good as home-grown. If you grow them they have a really spicy taste.”

It has not just been apples that have been in plentiful supply at Brookfields this year.

Brookfields Auxiliary Nurse, Pat Boodsara Ashcroft, takes pride in growing everything from seed, and under her watchful eye the garden has also produced a bumper crop of tomatoes, plus huge amounts of runner beans, radishes, lettuces, courgettes and herbs, along with beautiful cut flowers for residents to enjoy cultivating and arranging in hanging baskets and in vases throughout the home.

Simon has been creating a variety of dishes from the glut of home produce, including chutneys, twice-baked herby soufflés and salads.

So plentiful has the fruit and veg been that residents’ families have got into the spirit of the growing season by bringing in their own home-grown to be served up on the Brookfields’ dinner tables too.

Pat said encouraging residents to enjoy time in the garden with flowers and vegetables was key to their happiness.

She said: “Some residents who are in bed all the time and not able to go out, if you give them something to grow I believe it really helps their wellbeing.

“People love the sunflowers that we grow. When you’re sitting in bed most of the time and come out and see the birds come out on to the flowers, it makes people happy.”

Brookfields owner Celeste Turner said: “Residents often tell us one of the things they miss most is their garden. It’s great for them if they can go outside and see their plants coming on – it’s really important for them to still keep that link that they have lost.

“Residents who are unable to get involved in gardening can still see the vegetables and fruit growing outside and they comment on it. Some people have asked for dishes to be made from the garden. If you bring something out to them at the dining table, and they know it’s been made using produce from the garden, they have got a connection with it, and it builds anticipation for them, and improves appetites.”

Brookfields was built as a private house in 1907 and fruit and vegetables have always thrived in the garden there.

Celeste, who grew up in the house which was run as a nursing home by her parents, said she was keen to carry on the tradition.

“Growing fruit and vegetables ticks a lot of environmental boxes,” she said. “Our gardening is chemical free. Lots of us in the Brookfields family enjoy growing our fruit and veg. We often sit outside at break time and enjoy the garden – we all benefit.”

This press release was prepared and distributed by Penguin PR. For more information, please contact Lucy Stephens at Penguin PR on [email protected] or phone 0771 983 9446.