2023 - Amazing Apples - With the strangest start to the season that I've ever seen I didn't expect much of a crop. Though there were a couple of the usual frost/freeze cold spells, overall May and June were not only abnormally hot (often into the 80's) but very dry. With 1/4" of rain in May and less than 1" in June my days were filled with hauling buckets of water. The larger trees were on their own but I did my best to get at least a survival amount of moisture to the youngest trees and bushes (as well as the garden, of course). Once I finally made my peace with the 'no rain' it became routine. I figured I'd be happy with whatever crop we might get. Finally into July the rains began and temps settled down. Though still considered a dry year we did get a much appreciated 3" in July and a couple inches each August and September.

It was hard to see leaves curling during the dry spells but then we'd get a little rain and they would recover. There was scattered tip blight and fire blight, more in a few trees, many with none. I cut it out at first notice and that kept it from being a major (or even minor) issue for which I was thankful. The leaves may not have look their finest this year but considering their challenges they all came through fine. Though obviously stressed, I don't think I lost anything in the orchard (or garden).

And to my great surprise the apple trees came through with moderate to very full harvests! We had apples on our apples! Was it their reaction to the drought stress? Or did they rather like the weather? Hard to say, but we made cider, I dried apples, I sauced apples, I shared apples, and filled the root cellar with apples. I started thinking seriously about organizing my plan to sell apples. And as a bonus there were seven new varieties to taste! What a fun year after all to be an apple geek. 

2019 - Wonderful Year - BLOOM, Incredible blooming year! June 5 - Bulero first, full, and crabs, largest S two either side of drive so full & thick you can’t see any tree. MrC, too. Other crabs starting, also thick (and buzzing!). Dudley blossoming, Beacons starting. June 8 - Dudley full, Lilli full moderate, BeaconS moderate, more at top, BeaconN full on old, scattering bloom on newer wood; Splitter moderate, just opening; Sasha medium, open; Front Yard light full; Cali light, full; Haralson moderate bloom about half open. June 10 - BlOx was last, full bloom. Only five days from the first to the last to be in full bloom. No question about adequate pollination!

A very large overall harvest this year. Plenty for eating, sauce and cider (~9 gals)! Wonderful year. It's been many a year since we've had this many apples.

For most of the apples the question of when to pick is when they are ripe, or when the birds are getting more than I think they should. But for the Black Oxford and other late trees it's often how cold can they stand and still be good. Our root cellar is slow to cool down in the fall so for storage apples I want to pick as late as I can. This year October 17 they forecast low 20's temps so I picked the tree. The apples were ready and it was a good harvest but I left several dozen quite small apples to see how they would do. It got down to 24°, all night. The small BlOx’s were just fine. Three nights later, October 30, it dropped to 20°. Still OK! + a missed Dudley, too. November 8 -- 3°! apples done.

October 11, 2019 -- A Wild Array - This year's apple saga is winding down. I harvested the Haralsons a few days ago (14#, a smaller harvest but a very nice crop - it's a variety that tends towards one year on, one year off and this is its "off" year), we pressed our second batch of cider, another nice and delicious 4 gallons, canned it today, and there is now room in the root cellar for the potatoes (dug yesterday, before today's/night's big rains). Black Oxford is still on the tree, there is a crate of Beacons waiting to be sauced along with the oldest Dudleys, and several crates of the best and freshest for fresh eating and fresh sauce as needed. If the weather cooperates I'll dry a few more batches, too. We're still enjoying fresh apples but they aren't quite as exciting as they were a month ago.

But there are also little sets of 2, 3 or more apples sitting here and there on the shelves in the root cellar. These are my "test" apples, mostly from our wild trees. I'm wondering how long they will keep in good shape. The cold front coming in tonight (likely freezing nights, cold and windy days) should help cool down the root cellar which will be nice since it's still in the mid-upper 50's, warm for good apple storage. A few of the wildings have very good fruit, some I'm happy to leave for the deer and squirrels, others are OK and find their way into a batch of sauce or cider. I enjoy these diverse apples no matter what I do, or don't do, with them. They are mostly quite different one from the other, Nature's breeding at work, not only in looks but taste and texture, too. It also helps that I've named most of the trees for our many and diverse cats who have blessed our lives over the forty years we've been here. It's pleasing as well as practical. So here's our line-up this year:

All the wild trees had at least a small harvest, while MrC outdid itself raining down a storm of juicy pretty large crabapples for the deer and smaller critters. I even enjoyed these small bites as I wandered by, a particularly tasty year. And Bulero surprised me greatly by having a good crop of good tasting, sweet, juicy, small red "lunchbox" size apples that made the best no-sugar sauce! Last year they were rather dry texture. I didn't want to leave Ditto out but her tree hasn't fruited yet. 

October 1, 2019 -- Apple Love - It's probably not a surprise to anyone who reads our blog that apples are a bit of a passion for me. I'm not sure how I got so interested in them, but they do bring me a lot of pleasure, beyond simply as food. And it's getting even more fun as new apples that I've never seen nor tasted before start to fruit. This year there were three new grafts that set fruit, only a few each, and only one of one, but enough for a taste. They were our first apple grafts to bear fruit! All were on a branch of an established tree (not on their own rootstocks) which means there will never be many (unless we graft onto more branches) but it also means they fruit earlier than the ones on young small rootstocks. It was exciting when I realized they had blossoms, and then thrilled when they fruited. These apples were given a great deal of watchful attention. Every time I passed the trees I looked to make sure the fruit was still there. Only one was inside the fence, the other two outside on a wild tree, vulnerable to a deer or squirrel munch. Thankfully, we are in short supply of both this year.

The first to ripen (2 apples) was the Nutting Bumpus (the names are sometimes as much fun as the apples!). One dropped mid September, the other came off in my hand. Excited I took photos then took a slice. Mmmmm. Well, it was OK but really wasn't very special. It tasted quite like the wild tree it had been grafted to, though somewhat larger and earlier. Rather tart but with flavor and some sweetness. It isn't a bad apple, just not anything special. I saved one of the two apples to see how it kept but it was getting soft so today it went into a batch of sauce. I won't cut it off but I won't graft any more of it. To be fair, apples often change as the tree ages and future crops may be different. But it is a Duchess seedling and tastes a lot like the many Duchess types that are all along the roads. Duchess of Oldenburg is an old and hardy apple that was likely planted in most of the old orchards around here. I'm not sure now why I chose this one to begin with. But it was still exciting to have it fruit.

The second variety came down five days later - the one and only apple - a Canadian variety called Goodland. This was such a beauty it had been fun just to watch it grow. A large, 3" fruit, clean, I was really excited about this one. I set it on the counter for several days just to admire it! Then I carefully sliced it - nice, juicy. Gave Steve a piece and we both tried it. Hurray! This one is a keeper for sure. Delicious. We both liked it a lot. Sweet/tart flavor has an interesting sweet aftertaste. Can't wait for more of these. We'll be grafting it on its own rootstock next year.

Our third newby is still on the tree - 3 fruit, outside the fence, carefully protected from deer (I hope) with a ladder underneath to discourage close contact (and give the squirrels a way to climb up Steve says) (hah) (I expect LilliB to make sure that doesn't happen) and branches pinned carefully across to hide the fruit, because these will likely not be ready for several more weeks. We got our scion from an old tree, growing on an old homestead property next to ours.

2018 - Record cold, record hot, record long, record short, record low, record high, record  number of voles - a very interesting year is was! Winter was a test, and several young trees didn't make it - Pomme Gris and Gray Pearmain, all cherry grafts, one pear. Not that it was particularly cold overall, but the extremes were short and fast, going from unusual warmth to record cold in December, little snow on the ground all winter, record cold  April, then suddenly slipping right into summer the end of May with no spring. A long hot summer, things grew well. Trees and shrubs and plants need to be of hardy soul and limb to survive, and I so appreciate that so many did.

We had reasonable apple harvest with light crops from Dudley and Black Oxford, and a bumper harvest of Haralsons, plus some wild apples. Variety and diversity helped to feed us well!

Apples! - September 28, 2017

I do love my fruit! And I think apples are some of the most interesting and amazing -- for their beauty, their variety, their adaptability, their ability to make so many creatures of the world happy with their fruit and their foliage, and all the tiny creatures that live on and in (and those who live eating those). Almost every year the apples growing on our land feed us well. We were blessed with an interesting (and delicious) variety this year, from both named and wild trees. Here is the best excuse for growing your own.