Apple Time

Each season is the end of one thing and the beginning of another on the farm. The green and yellow beans are finished—ready to be pulled out and fed to the pigs before the oncoming frosts blacken the stalks to nothing. But that, in turn, means that something else is coming into its own. Winter squashes and pumpkins are finishing ripening, soon to be brought in by the wagonload. And the other delectable harvest time is apples!

Each spring, it’s touch-and-go with frosts as to whether the delicate apple blossoms will be allowed to bear fruit. So far north yet too far south of Lake Superior for any mitigating weather effects, there always seems to be a super chilly night right during blossom season. A teasing warmup can wreck a whole year’s crop, which did happen to the berries this year, but luckily the apples weren’t fooled and waited.

The nights were still a bit frosty, but the bees found the blooms by day and worked their pollinating magic. By mid-summer, it was easy to see that what was feared to be a loss was going to be a bumper crop year instead.

The apples on our farm are a patch-work lot. Grandma planted a lone apple on the south side of the garage, where it could be protected from north winds. Slowly, over the years, that apple has grown, but there was never any fruit. To encourage better pollination, we planted crabapple trees nearby, learned better pruning technique, and started raising honeybees. I still remember celebrating the first three apples with Grandma…even if they all were eaten in one setting.

But this year that old tree Grandma kept threatening to cut down because it was being so poky out did itself with boxes and boxes of yellow and red blushed apples. Hooray for Grandma’s apple tree! But it had been so long since she’d bought that apple tree from the Winter Greenhouse, she can’t remember what type it is!

That meant we had to have a tasting festival to try and guess the mystery apple variety.

“Hmm…” Steve mused. “It’s acidic enough to be turning brown right away, and it’s crisp, so not a Duchess.”

“But it’s definitely an eating apple,” was Mom’s conclusion. “It’s not as tart as the Harlsons or a Granny Smith.”

“Maybe it’s closer to a Johnathan,” I offered.

“Hmm, yes that could be—that would be the sort of apple I could see Grandma buying.”

If you’re an apple variety connoisseur, come on over and get a bag and let us know your vote on Grandma’s apple tree! For now, we’ll call it a Johnathan, unless a better name comes along.

Then back behind the barn sprung an apple tree all on its own. Well, two, actually. One is a large crabapple that wound its way up into a pine tree, as tall as the barn (or taller). We never knew it was a crab tree until it began producing apples. Too high to reach, we wait for them to fall down on the trail back to the hayfield, then gather them up for the pigs.

The squealing Kunekune pigs line up by the edge of their paddock, pacing. Apple season is a happy time for them. It’s also deer apple season from the orchards and supermarkets, with folks collecting reject fruits for resale. Kara’s contact received a shipment of two huge crates that were too far gone, saying, “You can have these for your pigs if you’ll come get ‘em.”

So the crew loaded up the wooden trailer and headed off to Loretta. It smelled like cider all the way home, dripping sugary juices out of the bottom of the cardboard. It didn’t take long for the honeybees to find the sticky mess and arrive in swarms. Free food! They buzz and hover each morning, gathering apple juice—which makes scooping up the apples for the pigs an interesting process. Fortunately, most of the bees are being friendly and sharing the apples.

Back to the trees behind the barn, the other also grew up on its own and just in the last few years began fruiting an apple or two a year—green and red, sweet and soft in texture but with a very mild flavor. Talking with an arborist in the area, it may be located on a part of the farm that used to be the orchard back when the Fullingtons were homesteading. Difficult weather or other conditions could have caused the trees to die, but because they were planted before grafting apples onto a different root stock was common, the trees can come back up from the root system and still bear fruits true to the original tree! I hadn’t heard of this before, but it’s fun to think that this apple is a piece of the farm’s legacy, still growing.

Beside this resurrected apple, we have plans for a partner tree. Our first guard donkey, Belle, is now at least 30 years old, with failing health. We have a resting place planned for her behind the barn, where her spirit can continue to look after the flock. And with her, a new apple tree that Kara picked up (also) from the Winter Greenhouse—a State Fair. Early, red, and great for saucing, it will serve as a living memory of Belle’s steadfast guardianship on the farm.

Up by the house, a couple young apples are working to establish themselves—a Duchess and a Harlson. Maybe in a few years, they too will be offering a boxful of crisp, delicious fruits for the table and pot. And then, all over the farm, everywhere you turn there’ll be apples! Maybe it’s time to look into making cider—yum.

Have you found your local apples for the season? No shipping to South Africa to be waxed, no plumes of sprays used or mechanical tree shakers that shorten the lives of the arbors. This is climb-up-in-the-branches style of apple picking I’m talking about. It’s harvest time! See you down on the farm sometime.