Can it really be time for apples?? Jon and I are really trying to keep up with all the produce that is coming in with living in a different time zone. Our pumpkins are orange and the plants are dying back; the butternuts are turning tan; and now a friend's neighbor's apple tree is dropping its apples! This apple tree is the largest apple tree I have ever seen! The owner says throughout the years people pick a bag or two of apples for applesauce and pies, but he doesn't care for apples and just mows over them. He was more than happy to have someone take them away...and we were more than happy to pick them!
We don't know what variety these apples are but they are completely green and super sweet!
The apples aren't as juicy as some varieties but we managed to make cider with about 10 gallons of apples. Made 8 quarts.
This is the best kitchen gadget ever---the apple peeler, corer, slicer! This little device has saved me countless hours over the years. It took maybe 25 minutes to fill both of the soup pots in the picture below.
Two soup pots full of apples and cinnamon sticks are boiling down for applesauce. Two full pots of raw apples yields 7 quarts after the apples have cooked down.
Even the chickens enjoy the apple scraps...in addition to the seeds they find in the cow manure marinating in the front yard.
Several batches of dehydrated apple slices were made with the solar food dehydrator.
There is so much fruit right now that we're having a hard time keeping up! This week we ate the first watermelon from our garden. This watermelon was the juiciest I had ever tasted. The chickens LOVE watermelon seeds.
2 comments :
Our apple trees are about showing signs of a harvest not too far away, and I've got to say after reading a couple of your posts about pressing apples into cider, I'm jealous of your apple press. I might have to look on Craigslist for a used one!
Thanks for sharing!
Chris
Hi Chris,
Yes, definitely get a cider press! Ours is a Happy Valley Ranch press and it works really well. An added perk is that we keep it in our living room as a piece of furniture! We just finished pressing for this tree and we have 19 quarts already in the basement! We save all the large, blemish-free apples for applesauce, pies, and dehydrated apple slices and press the rest. The press makes sure no apples go to waste!
Post a Comment