It's been a busy week or so here in Hickery Holler. In the spring we watch for the apple blossoms to return and hope that the frosts do not come late in the spring and knock all the blossoms off.
During the summer we watch with bated breath and pray that the rains come regular and there is no drought that year. We try our best to keep the deer away from the trees and watch for pests. And if we are very very lucky come fall the temperatures start to cool and the leaves start to fall and we are rewarded with a bounty of apples. This year the weather has been kind and the trees are heavy with ripe fruit.
We just heard yesterday that our neighbor who is in his 70's is in the hospital after falling off the ladder picking his apples. He broke 6 ribs. We are trying to be careful with our picking.
O Wise One has kept the apple peeler whirring peeling all that fruit.
And we have managed to pretty well stock up for the year and have shared with several neighbors and friends.
Lots of apple sauce for the grandchildren.
And apple pie filling for those winter pies.
Now we are working on keeping the walnuts picked up. The mower is back in the shop and we are sure glad that the weather is cooling and the grass not growing very fast.
And lots of apple pies to go around to everyone.
How's your apple harvest going?
Blessings from The Holler
The Canned Quilter
Wonderful apples! Enjoy them!!! All the trees around here lay barren this year thanks to a late frost which means- I have no apples on our trees and the neighbors don't either. If I WANT apples, I'll have to pay a tidy sum to get them. So, we will go without any apple canning this year. I am pretty much out of canning jars at this point and entirely out of space anyway (bumper tomato crop!) and ready to be done with canning for a bit at this point too so I am not too disappointed. We still have enough applesauce from last year to allow for applesauce once a week through winter and quite a few jars of apple butter left too which eases that apple sadness too.
ReplyDeleteI was away with my girls' visiting my elderly neighbor back from when I was a girl this past weekend and wouldn't you know- while I was gone, frost came. UGH! The day before I had picked every last good tomato (green or otherwise) to ripen -just in case- but I had hoped it wouldn't be necessary. I ran out of time to do anything else. So now, today I must see if any of the peppers/squashes/beans/flowers are still salvagable. The basil looks awful...no more pesto making for the year and I never did a BIG batch!
I am ready to put the garden to bed for the year but I wish I could have done my usual huge haul before frost. And I will miss the fresh flowers around the house every week. But I look forward to not having a huge garden/produce to-do list for a while! Gardening season surely is busy!
We enjoyed the three apples produced on our two year old Gold Rush Apple tree last week. They were delicious and we are looking forward to many more in the next few years! We cut those three little apples into 20 slices so that everyone got a tiny bite of the first harvest. Do you have a problem with Sooty Blotch and Fly Speck on your apples? I'm looking for the best organic treatment to spray for these fungal diseases.
ReplyDeleteYour apple pie filling looks absolutely wonderful.
Leslie we actually have very few problems with our apples and I haven't sprayed them in years. There is no magic but I just don't have problems like that often. I keep my trees trimmed of dead wood and thin my apples and that is about it. You have many years ahead to enjoy apples. It took my trees about 5 years after they STARTED bearing to really get a bumper crop.
DeleteThank you for all the tips. We've also cleared all the brush even further back from where our trees are planted. Those three little apples may have looked a hot mess...but they sure were tasty!
DeleteWe were up your way on Saturday and saw LOTS of apple trees that were just loaded. Such a beautiful site. So many not being picked...which makes me sad.
ReplyDeleteWe have no apple trees and I am so envious of yours! We used to have them but the deer population is so bad where I live they just stripped the trees and they died. I will be buying a bushel from a local country store to make some applesauce to can. I picked the last of our green peppers and jalapenos Saturday evening, good thing too because we had a frost Sunday morning. I froze 2 more gallons of green peppers and another gallon of red peppers, and yet 1 more of jalapenos. The rest I brought to work to give away. You can only use so many peppers! Your pies look delicious!
ReplyDeleteSuch wonderful produce. I love fresh, crisp apples. - Margy
ReplyDeleteWhat a joyful abundance!
ReplyDeleteSuch beautiful apples and apple things! Where we are in Virginia there are hundreds of abandoned apple trees dotting roadsides and fields. They are the old standard trees and tower huge above fencerows drooping their apples. We have talked to several farmers and they let us pick all the apples we need. We picked several bushel boxes and took them to the food bank...where they rejected them because they did not know for sure if they were safe because they were not from a registered orchard! Can you imagine that!
ReplyDeleteWe went apple picking last week and today made the recipe for "autumn/apple surprise cake" you posted about this time last year. So very very yummy and autumn-y... Thanks for the recipe... I use it often!
ReplyDeleteHow splendid! They are so lovely. It seems hard to get apples here in georgia but it does not keep me from trying. :)
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