Apple Day
Next: October 21, 2027
Taste an apple you've never met.
The story
Where it comes from
Apple Day was launched by Common Ground in 1990, with a celebration in the old Apple Market at London's Covent Garden that brought fruit back after 16 years' absence. Forty stalls sold apples, trees, juice and cider, and thousands of people came. The aim was to create a new autumn custom: a celebration of the many local apples, orchards and landscapes that Britain was in danger of losing, and of knowing where our food comes from.
How it's celebrated
Villages, city markets, National Trust properties, Wildlife Trusts, museums and schools hold events on or around 21 October; there were more than 60 in 1991 and over 600 by 1999. The favourite is still a table of many apple varieties to taste and buy, with an expert on hand to name the apple from your garden. There is juicing, baking, pruning and grafting, apple printing for children, songs and poems.
Did you know
- The wild ancestor of the eating apple still grows in the Tian Shan mountains near Almaty in Kazakhstan, whose old name, Alma-Ata, is often translated as 'father of apples'.
- The UK's National Fruit Collection at Brogdale in Kent holds around 2,000 varieties of apple.
- Doctors' surgeries and heart-health groups have used Apple Day to encourage healthy eating.
Coming up next
- International Stuttering Awareness Day · October 22, 2027
- International Day of the Snow Leopard · October 23, 2027
- United Nations Day · October 24, 2027
- World Pasta Day · October 25, 2027
- Founding of the Football Association · October 26, 2027
- Austrian National Day · October 26, 2027