Harvest

For a little break from the apples I'll post a short message here.

The harvest of apples began in earnest on Sat. and continues today and likely many days to come. It is the Rescue variety that are ready right now. they are officially a cross between a large apple and a crab apple. they average about 1&1/2 inches in diameter are yellowish with pink tints when at the perfect ripeness for processing or eating raw. When they are totally pink to red they are too soft and mushy for our taste- only good for apple juice then.

My preferred way of preserving them is to wash, quarter, remove the stem and core, and freeze. To keep the color bright and normal I put them in a bath of water, salt and vinegar as soon as they are cut, then I rinse them in plain water and drain before placing them in freezer bags and freezing.

The best use for these pieces of apple next winter is in crisp and pies (skins and all).

Andrew consumes a large amount of them in the frozen state as snacks.

Many of these apples usually end up as apple sauce and they make a very tasty kind.

We have a tree full of Heyer's #12 apples that are a bit off taste and deteriorate very quickly. Most of them end up in the garbage can. We keep the tree because it is perfect for shade.

We have two more trees of large apples that will be ripe in two to three more weeks. These we use for sauce, drying and keeping in the fridge for later.

Back to the work, Jean