Apples 2013

It's been a great year for our apples! Last year we barely reaped anything from the two trees. To make up for it, we can hardly keep up this year. Local folks tell us this is a common progression. We've made applesauce, apple butter, and apple turnovers, and I've carried two cat litter boxes full up to church, and let three folks from church and the neighborhood pick their own. And there are still more waiting. I picked some apples tonight for another round of apple butter. The recipe I found takes 22 hours (!!) but is pretty much worth it. Here with a photo-essay of part one. I'll get a picture of the trees and the final steps in a second post.

Rinsing apples in the sink. Ours are 100% organic, which means we don't do anything to them, which means we take them as they come off the tree. Yellow jackets like them, and so do birds and squirrels, and so we have to clean up everything that comes along with that.

Peeling. A few years ago we invested in a peeler. It never has seen much action until this year. In fact this is probably the best year in 7 in terms of yield. We didn't loose many to insects, animals, blight, freezing, drought or anything. The first time I made apple butter and applesauce, I let Eli and Briggs work the peeler. They were at a football game tonight. It wasn't too bad on my own.

More of the peeler. Being organic, our apples come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. I had to do just a little bit of trimming up after the peeler this evening.

I think I used about 40 small and medium apples this evening; I forgot to count ahead of time. This is their condition after peeling.

Using the corer and slicer. This works great. I chop off the tops and bottoms and then use this tool to core and slice them. Some slices need trimming of leftover peel, or sores, and some have seeds. This part of the process goes pretty quickly.

The current batch as they begin in the slow cooker. Twenty-two hours later will be something quite different! The only other ingredient besides the apples at this point is apple cider vinegar, so the house has a distinctive aroma about it!

Spring 2012

Spring came early and has hung around. The fruits trees are blooming early too. These are the apples trees and the blueberry bushes. The pear tree's flowers came and went (in a rain storm) so fast I didn't get a chance to get a picture of them. I pruned both apple trees this winter in hopes of improving their yield. I also hope to spray them to keep bugs to a minimum. That's been the biggest reason we've had such poor yield in years past. Hope it goes well.

Apples

First there are buds and flowers, sometimes with snow...

Then there are little green apples...


Then there are red apples...

Then there are picked apples in the bucket...

Then there is pie, preferably a la mode...

And it was good. We also made applesauce last week, but certain children didn't like the texture. I'm contemplating a food mill.

Fruit update

The pear tree is getting very weighed down with fruit. No color on them yet, but the tree is covered, including the broken branch that didn't completely sever from the tree.

The blueberries arrived seemingly overnight. One day there were some fruit nubs and yesterday I noticed bright blue berries. Pretty cool. The birds have not yet set on them, so I know they aren't ready to eat yet. And I know I have just a few short days to get the bushes covered with netting. I'm going to try to pick up some stakes to support the net, rather than just throw it over the bushes like last year. We'll see.

The apples are starting to show a little bit of color. They tend to grow in bunches which leads to crowding later on. I might try to thin them, but I can only reach a relatively small portion of the tree, so it seems rather a lot of work for not all that much gain. I may try it on a few branches, though, just to see what effect thinning the fruits has on their development.

Fruits

In addition to the strawberries in the perennial bed we have these:

There are a couple of apple trees in the back. They produce a red apple that's pretty mild. Not much flavor raw, but they cook very well.

There are four blueberry bushes. I really meant to prune them back in February, but the moment got away from me. I tried to root cuttings back in the fall, but that failed. If we want more, I reckon we'll have to buy them like other folks. We'll have to cover these soon with mesh to keep the birds away from them.

Then there is the pear tree in the front. The first couple of years it didn't do anything. Last year it was full of fruit, and we couldn't keep up. Looks like this will be a good year also. A branch near the top of the tree that snapped during one of the winter storms, but I don't have a ladder tall enough to get at it and cut it out. There are couple of previous broken limbs also, that have kept on bearing fruit. But I think the tree would enjoy getting rid of the limbs that grow upside down!