September 16, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today Laura and I collected apples for the huge apple display at the Common Ground Fair. We hope that we’ll see you there. A number of us apple nerds will be hanging out by the display all three days, talking about apples and attempting to ID the many mysteries that fair-goers bring with them. The apple display is in its own tent this year, next to the Hayloft Ag speaking tent and right near the Fedco tent. Look for the Hayloft or Fedco and you’ll find us.

Later, Laura, Cammy, Sean and I tasted several new selections sent to us by apple breeder Ike Kerschner of North Star Orchards in Pennsylvania. This was the second batch of apples Ike has sent us this fall.  We tasted seven numbered selections. The clear winner was #81. It has a distinctive flavor, reminiscent of Frostbite (MN 447). The apple is also perfectly textured, beautiful, multi-colored, russetted and lumpy. Just my kind of apple. Maybe we’ll see it growing at Super Chilly Farm sometime in the next few years.

Tasting Ike Kerschner’s apples (#81 in front corner of table)

September 17, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today Laura, Khris and I picked apples at the Apple Farm in Fairfield. We picked Chestnut Crab, Canadian Strawberry and King of Tompkins County. Later Laura picked Wealthy at Sandy River Orchard in Mercer. Most of the apples will be distributed through the CSA. Chestnut and Canadian Strawberry will also be featured at the Common Ground Fair tasting. Both tend to be just about at peak flavor on Fair weekend, and they often duke it out for first and second place. You can taste both in your CSA share or at The Fair on Friday and Saturday afternoons. Come find them (and us) at the Hayloft Tent.

Two of the four old Canadian Strawberry trees at Roy Slamm’s farm in Solon Maine 

September 14, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

The 2024 apple pie taste-off, September 14

This weekend was the annual pie taste-off at Camp Merryweather in North Belgrade. Twenty-five pie “experts” each sampled small pieces of three single-variety pies and then voted on their favorite. The three varieties were Milton, Milwaukee and Munson. Milton is a McIntosh x Yellow Transparent cross from the NY experiment station breeding program in 1923. The Milton crust collapsed, and though the flavor was decent, it was too soupy, just like a Mac. The Milwaukee, from an old tree in our Finley Lane Orchard, is thought to be a Duchess seedling. The Milwaukee fruit held up well in the oven, but the flavor was too tart for many of the tasters. (It was excellent with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.) The Munson, an old Massachusetts apple, is from a tree discovered by Russ Libby. The Munson had both good flavor and texture. The after dinner excitement built up to a frenzy, and when the ballots were cast, Munson was the clear winner with 14 of 24 votes. It’s a beautiful apple and looks to have a big future ahead of it in the oven.

September 10, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Identified as Transcendent crab tree, Cornwall CT, 2024

The CSA crew packed up the rest of the apples for the first week of the CSA and loaded the ones for pick up in Portland, Brunswick, Trenton and Belfast into our trucks. Tomorrow those shares will go to the drop-off sites while the rest will be set out in our barn for share-holders to pick up here.  Meanwhile I did apple ID’s. The apple ID’s included the small fruit from two huge, old trees in NW Connecticut and a medium-large, rosy-red fruit  from Idaho. The small fruit is probably Transcendent Crab, a classic old cultivar of uncertain origin. The Idaho fruit will remain a mystery for now.

September 9, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Bunk loading apples, St. Lawrence tree in the background

Today Cammy and the crew packed up apples for the first week of the CSA: Red Gravenstein, Milton and Zestar. In the afternoon Laura and I went to the Apple Farm in Fairfield and picked fourteen bushels of St. Lawrence and a bushel of what we provisionally call, “Munson.”  We picked the St. Lawrence from two of the very old trees still remaining in the orchard. Both trees were loaded, and we could have picked another ten bushels off the two trees. The weather was clear and cool. It was a fantastic day to be out in the orchard picking apples. 

September 8, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Yesterday we discovered that our barrel of cider from fall 2023 was leaking all over our basement floor. No wonder the house smelled like cider. So today we bottled it. We had pressed the blend of 30+ varieties last November 16th, and it was fermented to dry (SG 1.0).  It was a productive day although it might have been more fun being outdoors since the weather was clear and cool. When the bottling was finished I went to Maine-ly Apples in Dixmont and picked up Zestar for the CSA. Khris and Lizzie Hogg met me there to help. Tomorrow is the first day of packing for the CSA. The crew is readying for action.

A partial list of apples included in the barrel we pressed November 16, 2023

September 7, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

This morning I fruit-explored with a local group on Deer Isle, and later gave a mid-afternoon outdoor talk to a large enthusiastic group at the Island Heritage Trust. The trees we visited included both grafted trees and seedlings. All were quite old. Four huge seedlings, now buried in the spruce forest, almost certainly grew up long ago on the edge of what was once pasture. They are still alive though suffering from the shade of the conifers. The owners love the trees and hopefully will remove enough of the tall spruce to get some light back to the apples. The talk at “IHT” was well received. I got a phone call in the middle of the talk and couldn’t figure out how to turn off the ringer. I think the crowd got a kick out of the interruption.

Todd Little-Siebold, Dave Fulton, John Bunker fruit exploring on Deer Isle

September 6, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Tolamn Sweet, New Sharon, Maine

I collected about two dozen apples to use as props for my talk tomorrow in Deer Isle. Four of them are the classic cultivars typically found on the oldest farms in central and southern Maine. They are Blue Pearmain, Tolman Sweet, Roxbury Russet and Yellow Bellflower. The other apples are all cultivars that would now be extinct were it not for the work of the Maine Heritage Orchard.

September 5, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today I visited Sweetsers’ Orchard in Cumberland to check out the Red Gravensteins. The Sweetser apple is a red sport of one of the most famous cooking apples in the world. There are several—or many—red Gravenstein sports. Each one has its own distinct name, such as the endangered Rosebrook of Sebastopol, CA.  As far as we know, the Sweetser sport is unidentified. En route home I visited several small commercial orchards to see what unusual apples they might be growing.  Late in the day I picked our Somerset of Maine and Red St. Lawrence. Both are also excellent late-summer cooking apples and are extremely rare.  I have never seen an old tree of Somerset. There may be none left. The scionwood for ours came from Bill Reid who obtained it from Glen Harris. Glen lived not far from where the apple originated and died before I was able to meet him. Somerset of Maine is one example of the many varieties that would be lost forever were it not for the efforts of countless people who are attempting to save the old varieties for future generations. You can read more about Somerset of Maine in Apples and the Art of Detection, chapter 9. Red St. Lawrence is even more rare than Somerset. More on that apple in a future post.  

September 4, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Laura picked the old tree (#20) in row 1 at Finley Lane. I had been mystified by its identity for years - for a while I thought it was a Gravenstein. I sent it to be DNA profiled, and it came back as “Milwaukee.” Is our tree Milwaukee?  Bussey (Illustrated History of Apples) lists Milwaukee as being a Duchess seedling [Bussy: Oldenburg] originating in Milwaukee, WI and introduced by George Jeffrey. I believe that our trees (there were at least two of them) were planted in about 1925. As of 1911 (Bradford: Apple Varieties of Maine) there is no mention of Milwaukee growing in Maine. Could it have gotten here within the next 15 years? The short answer is: perhaps. Next steps will include a detailed phenotypic dive into the fruit and an exploration of 1920-era nursery catalogs that might have offered Milwaukee trees that might have been sent to Maine. The mystery continues. 

Milwaukee has a deep, abrupt basin (scionwood from USDA)

September 3, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

I visited The Apple Farm in Fairfield and Sandy River Orchard in Mercer to get a sense of their 2024 crops. The Apple Farm should have many interesting cultivars this fall, including several excellent apples for the Out on a Limb CSA. Sandy River Orchard does not have a large crop but should have apples for the CSA as well. Hopefully we will pick Wealthy there in about a week.

Later in the day I went up to Finley Lane and cleared all the brush from around tree #20 in row #1. We’ll pick it tomorrow. The tree has been DNA profiled and came back as “Milwaukee.” This could be correct, although I suspect that it might be a case of an incorrectly identified submission to the reference panel.  The apples—whatever they are—do look good and are definitely ready to pick.  Another apple mystery to sort out.

Row1, tree #20 Finley Lane Orchard. Milwaukee??

August 25, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Most of the day was taken up tasting five advanced selections of dessert apples bred by the Pennsylvania orchardist and apple breeder, Ike Kerschner.  A group from Fedco came in the morning and a group from Portland came in the late afternoon.  Of the five, the apple with the most fans was #58.  It was the one that the Fedco group thought might have potential as a cooking apple. It is a beautiful apple by non-commercial standards: russet netting and muted colors. It has the coloring that would look good in our orchard but might have a hard time making it in the Hannford produce department. If it does come to a grocery store near you it will no longer be #58. By then, it’ll have a clever, catchy name.   

Five apples bred by Ike Kerschner

When I wasn’t tasting apples, I put the repaired tire back on the tractor.  Although it may be hard to believe that the farm survived forty-one years without a tractor, wheel barrows are way under-rated. You can do a lot with a wheelbarrow.

August 20, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Purple Heart Plum

Today we picked all the Purple Heart plums.  This is our favorite plum. It is delectable fresh eating. The fruit size is medium-large, the shape is round, the reddish-purple skin is not too sour, the flesh is dark glistening red.  Oh what a great plum!

No one knows the origin of Purple Heart, and no one has figured out the pedigree. There is, however, an interesting story behind it. Evidently an unidentified tree or scion was brought to the great New Hampshire plant breeder Elwin Meader eighty years ago or so. Meader had not seen or tried the fruit, but he consented to plant a tree.  When the the tree fruited, Meader instantly knew it was fantastic. He attempted to track down the fellow who had brought it to him, but by then the fellow had died. Meader named it Purple Heart for its purple-red flesh and introduced it. Although adored by connoisseurs,  Purple Heart has never gained much popularity with commercial growers. Commercial plums aren’t grown much in the eastern US, and Purple Heart is a finicky grower, not particularly productive and would probably ship about as well as an heirloom tomato. 

Purple Heart is of an unknown species. It may be a complex hybrid cross of native North American and Asian species. Its pollination requirements are unknown. With ours, we “covered all the bases.” Nearby our Purple Heart tree we have also planted Prunus ussuriensis, Prunus nigra and the complex “Black Ice”. One of them is providing the dust. At some point, perhaps, someone will DNA profile it and determine its pedigree. Until then, it’s just Purple Heart, this amazingly delicious August plum.  Someday we should plant a bunch of seeds and see what we get.  

August 23, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

The colorized photo of Red June in Apples of NY (1905). It is the spitting image of Jay Kenney’s UAF#3.

Today I put on my apple identification hat and made a case before the Historic Fruit Working Group for why the apple discovered by Jay Kenney of Clear Fork Cider in Paonia, Colorado and determined by DNA profiling to be UAF 3 (Unknown American Founder #3) should be declared to be the true Red June.  (See Orchard Report for 08/18/2024). The phenotypic evidence is pretty clearly a match with the historic descriptions, and the Working Group was convinced. Two historic apple collectors from North Carolina are coming up to Maine Apple Camp in a week and will bring with them what they call Red June (it originated in the South); it will be very interesting to see what they bring. We know we’ve found Unknown American Founder #3; we just aren’t 100% certain that UAF #3 is Red June.  At this point, I’d say it’s 99%.

I also toured our orchards, clipboard in hand, to see what was ripe.  I collected specimens for a small display of odd selections for tomorrow’s writers event. There will be a lot to taste for the first time this year.

Today’s photo:

August 19, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

A couple of days ago I collected a bagful of Duchess of Oldenburg drops. The “Duchess” are beautiful this year. The Duchess and other summer apples are ripening—or at least dropping—early. The Duchess seeds are brown and the fruit appears to be ripe. I made a large pot of Duchess applesauce today. It’s still on the stove and will go through the food mill in a few minutes. I also saved all the seed. I’ll stratify the seed this winter, plant them in the spring and in 2026 we’ll use many of the seedlings for our own rootstock. We’ll set out the best of them in row of Duchess trees for future pies, sauce and rootstock seed.  

Duchess seed harvested August 19, 2024

August 18, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Red June apples

Apple Identification season is upon us. Let the season begin! Today Alyssa joined me to look at apples from Colorado and New Hampshire.  The Colorado apple appears to be Red June and the NH apple appears to be Early Harvest.  In the coming weeks there will be many more submissions to look at and attempt to ID. We also collected leaves for DNA profiling. This batch are all historic cider cultivars sent to me from England over the past ten years. They all went through the APHIS program (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) in Beltsville MD and have now been released to us to grow out and disseminate.  Later we picked blackberries. It’s a fabulous blackberry year. It’s also shaping up to be a fabulous elderberry year. All the elderberry bushes on the farm are absolutely loaded.  Peaches are continuing to drop though so far we’re just collecting them off the ground and leaving those on the trees to ripen.

August 15 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Propping up peach branch with forked stick, Super Chilly Farm.

Peach Season is approaching fast! Today we collected a half bushel of Red Haven peaches off the ground. One branch of our oldest Red Haven tree broke off under the weight of the fruit. We thin the young fruit but never as much as we probably should. We also put “Y-shaped” forked sticks under the bearing branches to prop them up. That can help a lot. Many of the peach drops are still firm (or hard), but some are soft to the touch and are making excellent smoothies. If all goes well, we’ll be swamped with peaches within the next week or so.

In the not-so-good news department, fire blight is still here and we’ll be doing another pruning in the next few days.  

August 14 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today Laura was here for the day, weeding in the Finley Lane orchard and the BRC. The orchards here require weeding almost daily all spring and summer. I went on a mission to Portland to visit the “Suite Eleven” tree in-town Portland and an ancient tree in Falmouth. The Falmouth tree should be DNA profiled and phenotyped to see if we can identify it. It is a great find. These are the vintage trees we’re looking for: hollow and nearly dead. They are the most likely candidates for being of historic value. Keep on the look-out for them, and if you see one, let us know.

The Falmouth “Deena” tree, August 14, 2024

August 13, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today Laura and I worked in the orchards. Laura cleared one of the paths in the “BRC” orchard.  The paths have been narrowing over the past few weeks. Without some attention we might not have been able to get to the chicken coop, let alone the apple trees.  It’s great to have lots of “companions” in the orchard—we encourage them—but you still need access! Later we worked together weeding and applying Neem oil to the trunks of the young trees in our neighbor Haskells orchard. That orchard is old but includes about 40 young trees we’ve provided to them over the years. The first of those—a Wolf River—is fruiting for the first time.  

August 12, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Clethra alnifolia

One of my favorite woody perennials is now in full bloom, Clethra alnifolia (coastal sweetpepperbush or summer sweet). We grow the pink flowering Ruby Spice but the common white flowering Clethra is just as fine a plant. Though it does not appear to spread from seed, it does spread from root suckers, and one small plant can spread to ten-fifteen across in ten years. It’s not tall. Our oldest plant is about four-five feet. Clethra is super attractive to bees and butterflies. Tonight at 7:00 there were still several bumblebees buzzing from flower to flower.