Organic Apples
Organic Apples - Eric and Janet Rowlands of Great Sanders Farm in Kent have been growing organic apples for Tesco for 7 years. The apples are packed at J. Collingwood’s packhouse and marketed through Norman Collett Ltd.
Eric Rowlands started working at Great Sanders Fruit Farm in 1973 after serving his apprenticeship at Hadlow Horticultural College in Kent.
The farm was converted to organic by the owners Southern Water, allowing Eric to take over the lease of the farm in 1998. The lease requires the farm to remain organic and be registered with the Soil Association.
Eric’s farm consists of 12.3 Hectares. Of this, 6Ha is Bramley and 6.3Ha is dessert apples, mainly Cox, Russet, Elstar, Worcester, Discovery and Spartan.
The farm is run entirely by Eric and his wife Janet, who do all of the work including the picking. The picking takes place in September and the fruit is marketed up to January of the following year.
In 2006 Eric and Janet sold their house and bought their Organic fruit farm from Southern Water.
