Apples

The apple season is nearly upon us.  When Will & Aimee were here on Sunday we went into the orchard to look things over.  The Zestar! have gained a lot of size and are starting to turn red.  The Honeycrisp were not thinned enough -- so there will be a lot of them.  But it remains to be seen what that lack of thinning does to the size and flavor of the apples.  It's time to turn the apple sorter on and make sure all the parts are working.

It looks like we'll have about as many apples this year as we did 2 years ago -- when we sold apples well into November.  Having enough Honeycrisp to sell at markets through the month of October is very important because it is our most popular apple & draws people in.  If they want to make pies, freeze, or can we can sell them apples for that at the same time, but Honeycrisp is the apple of choice for fresh eating.  We'll be short on the Sweet Sixteen, which didn't set well at all, and short on the Ginger Gold, which is our 2nd best early apple and very popular with people who have tried it.  We'll only have enough of our newest apple, SweeTango, to make a tasting for us and a few lucky friends, family, and customers.  But considering that the trees were planted only last year (2010), it's pretty incredible to have any at all.

But first we have to get through August -- which means sweet corn and cantaloupe -- grown to fill the gap between strawberry season and apple season.  And, of course, tomatoes.  Farmer Bill loves tomatoes, but is still working out the logistics of growing them.  If he ever nails it, they'll be another good interim crop because Minnesotans crave tomatoes all winter and go crazy for the first on the markets.  He found a very good tasting variety this year -- we really like the flavor.  But the extreme heat caused growth problems for them in the hoop house, and the extreme amounts of rain caused problems in the field.  While we can't adjust the weather, we can adjust how we react to it, and next year Farmer Bill will have a little more knowledge to help him out.