Apple season!

[MaryB]

Friend has a huge Honeycrisp apple tree so she gave me a bushel of apples. Peeled/cored/sliced 2/3 yesterday for apple pies etc and today the rest for apple sauce I have cooking down. Smells good in here! Love fall harvest of fruit and veg!

[JBinMN]

:D
We just gathered about 6 - 5 gallon buckets of 3 different varieties ourselves, this past week.
:)

Gonna be doing the same in a couple of days/next week...

We had to do the Pasta/Spaghetti sauce canning first. Finished today. 36 pints in all.
:)

[rancher1913]

we are appled out here. we have made about 100 gallons of cider this year and have had our fill of apples, have 10 or 12 flats in storage that will last into the new year. been a good year for apples but not much else.

[MaryB]

These were sun burned, ugly skin... but tasty inside. Not sprayed either so the general assortment of worms etc in them... Ended with 9 pie sized bags of slices in the freezer, and 12 pints of cinnamon apple sauce. Might be getting another half bushel to dehydrate...

[LaPoint]

Our rifle and pistol range has a couple of organic (neglected) apple trees that are loaded with apples. My Mary and I picked about 4 grocery bags full of apples this last week. I peeled them and she sliced. I pealed them using my cordless drill, a spade bit and a hand held peeler. We froze about 35 quarts and canned another 10 quarts. Mary also made 9 pints of apple butter and an apple pie. This is my favorite time of year in MN. Can't wait for waterfowl season.

[avogunner]

Yep....the last weekend of Sept. is traditionally our "Applebutter" makin' weekend. All day affair.....starting with the "wimmen" peeling, coring, and "snitting" 6 bushels of Stayman apples. Cook down all day in our copper kettle, add some sugar, a bit of cinnamon oil, and a penny for luck and you'll end of with 50 gallons or so of pure goodness. Kind of our annual family reunion.
Can't wait!!!

[MaryB]

Sounds like I am getting another full bushel, might make some apple butter... love having the apples all winter to make stuff! Apple butter on waffles is yum stuff!

[JBinMN]

Missus & I did 20 qts of apples today as a final count. ( 2 5-gal. buckets w/apples even with the top) Got done right about the time the storms hit.

Lost 2 qts. to cracking, or we would have had 22. :(

Anyway, that was enough for one day. We still have more apples & have plenty available to us till they fall off the tree at my oldest sons & DILs place. Might do some more. Just not sure yet. Depends on timing as we have other stuff to do as well. We just wanted to get at least some in before it was too late to do any.

We make apple butter as well as jelly too, but just not yet this year. Still have some jars pf those down in the basement, but I do not know the count. I am going to look when I take these jars down to store.

[Fishman]

My deal was my peach tree. 27 gallons of peaches the week of July fourth. I made so many jams, canned peaches, and frozen pies. I am still peached out but my friends think it’s great. Mrs Fishman keeps taking my jam in to work to give away.

[Lloyd Smale]

crappy year for me. Not many apples and the ones I got were small. I think it was a combo or an off year and a real bad year for aphids. I sprayed my trees 5 times this summer and still didn't kill them all. Lots of cherries plumbs and peaches though.

[greenwart]

There is not much I miss about the great white north, but fresh apples and apple cider is one of them. Long before mass pasteurization and sterilization the local orchard would just pick up all the wind drops and press them into cider. Would drink just enough to get sick.

Bob

[Lloyd Smale]

don't apple trees grow in texas??
There is not much I miss about the great white north, but fresh apples and apple cider is one of them. Long before mass pasteurization and sterilization the local orchard would just pick up all the wind drops and press them into cider. Would drink just enough to get sick.

Bob

[redhawk0]

Not a great crop up here this year. Apples seemed a little small and lots of blossom rot. Anyway...the wife and I did get a 1/2 bushel...we don't can them any longer. We get just enough for apple crisp and an apple a day (keeps the Dr away, sorta thing) Our garden did ok this year, we put up 25 pints of salsa and this weekend I'll be processing jalapeno rings while the wife gets away on a Fall retreat with her twin.

redhawk

[Fishman]

don't apple trees grow in texas??

Actually not too well and only certain kinds. Friends haven’t had much luck with them and you never see an apple orchard. Peaches are another thing entirely. Grow like weeds and overbear like crazy if not pruned and thinned and the frost doesn’t get them. Good thing I like peaches a lot.

[gwpercle]

When I was a kid My Mom would come home with a bushel or two of apples , after eating as many as we could she made Apple Butter and put it up in canning jars !
During the winter we would east it with toast....that was the best .
Gary

[MaryB]

I should build a fruit press and go get all the windfalls from her trees... Make hard cider...

[Lloyd Smale]

peaches are a bit sketchy up here. I have one tree that puts out pretty good. the other two don't do so well. Same with pears. My neighbor has a tree that puts out great. my two are duds. Apple trees everywhere though and cherries do well.
Actually not too well and only certain kinds. Friends haven’t had much luck with them and you never see an apple orchard. Peaches are another thing entirely. Grow like weeds and overbear like crazy if not pruned and thinned and the frost doesn’t get them. Good thing I like peaches a lot.

[Beagle333]

Honeycrisp is my favorite apple. They don't grow them here, so price is always at a premium. Anytime I see them for less than $1.99/lb, I stock up.
Publix often carries them at $4.99/lb, but I just have trouble making myself pay about 4 bucks for a single large apple.

[JSH]

Folks with apples feel fortunate. Snow and frost here about Easter, it had been in seasonable warm before. Most fruit trees were in full bloom. Then we have had it pretty dry. $2 per pound at some farm markets. $18-24 per half bushel, about the size of a billiard ball or tennis ball.
Jeff

[bob208]

I live in the middle of apple country here. orchards every where you go. they started picking 2 weeks ago will go strong till thanksgiving.

[Wayne Smith]

Most apples require 200+ hours of freeze over the winter to bear. Peaches don't. Northern lowbush blueberries do, Southern highbush blueberries only require at most 40-60 hrs freeze. There are only a couple of apples that don't require a lot of freeze, the Arkansas Black being one of them.

[Gewehr-Guy]

You folks are lucky that live in apple country, as I planted about 16 apple trees, and about 6 look OK, the rest dead or dying, and I finally picked 6 apples this year!

[JBinMN]

Well, the missus finished up the last of the apple jelly today. we ended up with about 40-45 jars of apple jelly. She decided not to do any apple butter this year. We also canned around 20-21 qts. of just apples in light syrup.. Sha did a finale of 4 quarts of stewed tomatoes & said she is done for this year she thinks. Close to, or over 200 jars canned just this Fall, not counting some that were done in the late Winter/Spring after the holidays early in this year. We are now well stocked again.
:)

Now, it is my turn to start doing some canned venison. Need room in the freezers for anything that comes in for the Fall. Going to start this coming week I think.