December 4, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Newtown Scott Farm (above) and Peck Pleasant from the USDA watercolors in Bussey (below)

Today I spent time with the apple that is thought to be Newtown Pippin at Scott Farm in Vermont. Recently, a few people have doubted the identity. I closely examined a dozen apples of “Newtown Scott Farm” (NSF), and I concluded that the “Newtown Scott Farm” NSF is not Newtown Pippin (NP). Although there are definite similarities between NSF and NP, and it’s not difficult to see how the two could be confused with one another, there are many obvious differences between the two. 

Newtown Scott Farm may be the old Rhode Island cultivar, Peck Pleasant (PP). The descriptions of PP match NSF almost perfectly with no deal-breaking differences (Bussey, Vol V p119.) The USDA watercolor (Bussey, Vol V p217) is an exact match.

Scionwood for “Green Newtown Pippin,” “Yellow Newtown Pippin” and “Peck Pleasant” were all obtainable for decades from Tower Hill Botanic Garden (THBG) in MA. There is a chance that if the scionwood came from THBG, it could have been mixed up. In the THBG orchard (now gone and replaced) from which the scionwood would have come, Peck Pleasant was tree #108 and Green Newtown was #110, making them, presumably, just one cultivar apart in the row.  So it’s possible that Newtown Scionwood was ordered and Peck Pleasant was sent by mistake or that Scott Farm mixed up the labeling when the trees were grafted or over the ensuing years. If NSF has not been DNA profiled, it should be DNA profiled. 

November 3, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Cider pressing at SCF, November 3, 2024

I pressed a barrel of cider today with Alyssa Gavlik’s help. It took three pressings in the bladder press. Each pressing took 8 bushels of apples and yielded about twenty gallons of juice. We pressed over twenty varieties with the largest amounts being Wickson, Sweet Red, Ashmead’s Kernel, Windham Russet and “Whitefield” Russet. Meanwhile the CSA crew packed the storage apples for the last CSA of the year.

November 5, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

CSA crew uses rank choice to determine the best apples in the tasting.

While others were battling it out for the presidency—some would say by hook or by crook—we packed up the last CSA apples. We also did a taste test of twelve more of Ike Kerschner’s advanced apple selections.  There was no clear favorite though several won praise from the group.  We’re hoping that Ike will give us scionwood from a few of them for trials up at Finley Lane this coming year.   

October 28, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Stuffed Baked Potatoes, definitely organic.

Today on the farm we harvested the potatoes. Some varieties yielded better than others. It seems as though renewing the seed stock every few years may be a good idea.  This year we planted new Pinto Golds and Adirondack Reds, and they did really well. We tried Masquerade for the first time, and it did poorly.

October 27, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Tower Hill orchard in 2018 before being cut down.

Todd Little-Siebold and I drove to Tower HIll in Boylston, MA for an apple event. We gave a tag-team talk about apple collections and the Tower Hill collection in particular, and we threw in some history along the way. The trees in the original Tower Hill Orchard were all replaced two years ago after the old trees were removed, having suffered from rootstock decline (they were all on semi-dwarfs) and terrible fireblight. Leslie Duthie led a tour of the new orchard after our talk. Leslie is a volunteer who has taken on the orchard as her special project. She’s done an amazing job. We were joined by members of the Harrington family who generously endowed the orchard decades ago and made the preservation of the 119 rare New England cultivars possible.

October 26, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Planting the Scout tree, April 2013

It was a clear and beautiful Saturday in the orchards. Not too warm and not too cold. A friend, Brett, came up from Massachusetts to help pick the last of the apples.  We picked them all.  It was a great way to catch up and work together. He left with a pile of apples to share with his family. One of the highlights was picking the Scout tree.  We wait until as late as we dare before picking it so the flavors develop. It’s all about patience. As the old fortune cookie tells, “A handful of patience is worth a basketful of brains.” I sent a box of Scout, along with Shavel Sharp, Dandeneau and Sadie Segar to the Seedling Exhibition in western MA yesterday. Will Scout win again?

October 25, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Northwestern Greening at Pleasant Pond Orchard, October 2012

We had visitors on the farm including Jess and Shane from Pleasant Pond Orchard in Richmond.  It was a treat to be able to show them around the orchards and feed them dinner. They purchased Pleasant Pond Orchard from Mary Alioto and her husband Larry a few years ago and are now learning about the apples and how to grow them with little to no spray. Jess also creates healthy and delicious baked goods and preserves for customers at their farmstand and the Bowdoinham and Bath farmer’s markets.

October 24, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Wicksons waiting to be collected from the big blue tarp

I picked apples for our cider pressing including the Albert Etter selection, Wickson, which is an excellent cider apple if you pick it late. They tested at 19 brix.  Time to shake the trees. I used our huge blue tarp and a panking pole. The panking pole has a long straight handle with a hook on the end. I spread the tarp out on the ground under the tree, hooked a strategic branch and started shaking.  Ripe apples rain down in a few seconds, and the  2” Wicksons were ready. They were showering down all over me before I could say, “WASSAIL!” I collected seven bushels. I also collected an assortment of other apples that should round out the pressing.

October 23, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

I spent the morning describing and photographing apples from our trial orchard at Finley Lane. In particular I was looking at several of the seedling apples we’ve been given by fruit explorers in recent years, including Barbed Wire from Jason MacArthur in Vermont, Howe’s from Steve Gougeon in Massachusetts, and Deevee and Blue Wolf from Angus Dieghan in Maine.  All have potential as cider apples. Blue Wolf looks like a cross between Blue Pearmain and Wolf River. (Maybe it is.)

October 22, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

While I was doing apple ID’s and descriptions and making compost, the crew packed week #4 of the CSA. One of the apples we offered this week was Ananas Reinette. The fruit came from Scott Farm in Dummerston, VT. Here’s some information I put together about the apple:

This is an amazingly distinct and beautiful apple. The fruit is conic to oblong conic and electric yellow-green, sometimes blushed with golden, deep school-bus-yellow. It’s prominently dotted with green or russet freckles. The size is about 2 1/4 - 2 1/2" (5.5 cm - 6.5 cm). The stem short to almost medium and thin. The cavity shallow to very shallow and typically greenish or sometimes russetted. The basin is shallow to very shallow, wavy and wrinkled. 

Ananas rhymes with “Sha Na Na,” the rock ’n roll revival band of the late 1960’s and ’70’s (the “s” is silent.) Reinette is pronounced “Rye-net.” The apple is also known as Pineapple Reinette, Goldapfel, Kindbetter or Ananas. The full French name roughly translates to “Royal Pineapple” or “Pineapple Princess.” Ananas Reinette is thought to have originated in France or perhaps the Netherlands, somewhere between 200 and 500 years ago. Recent DNA profiling has shown it to be a cross between two very old varieties, Golden Harvey and Unknown Founder #1 (UF#1). Golden Harvey is an old dessert and cider apple, and a child of an even older French variety, Reinette Franche. Unknown Founder #1 is a very old—and as yet unidentified—European variety that shows up in the ancestry of many modern apples. Given its parentage, Ananas is likely several hundred years old, possibly dating to the 16th century. 

It’s difficult to determine when Ananas first appeared in the United States. Dan Bussey includes a December 8, 1900 watercolor of the apple painted by Deborah Passmore in The Illustrated History of Apples in the US and Canada. The specimen for that painting was grown in Austria, exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition, and then sent to Washington, DC where the watercolor was painted. The famous California plant breeder Albert Etter (1872-1950) trialed Ananas and used it in his breeding so we know it was in the States by the early 1900’s. Etter’s Katharine apple, named for his wife, may be a cross between Ananas and the old New York apple Wagener. The modern European varieties Freiherr von Berlepsch and Roter Ananas are also children of  Ananas.

October 21, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Blake Apple

I spent the morning describing and photographing apples from our orchards and spent the afternoon picking more of the late varieties. It was  actually hot by mid-day although quite delightful in temperature by 5 PM. Laura came over for most of the day, putting on more tree-guards and doing some packing of this week’s CSA apples. One of the apples I picked today was Blake, a variety that originated in Westbrook, Maine, then migrated to England where it became popular, and eventually found its way back to its original home.  It’s an excellent cooking apple—one of our favorites—and a long story. Read more about Blake in Apples and the Art of Detection!

October 18, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

I went to Groveton, NH to the Lost Nation Farm of Michael, Nancy and Grace Phillips. Michael was a good friend and the long-time, unofficial leader of the organic apple movement. He was a tireless researcher, often unappreciated by academia and the apple industry. Nevertheless, he was an inspiration to countless fruit growers. His classes, workshops and books have made a major contribution to fruit growing in general and to apple growing specifically. He died way too young, and he is deeply missed.  I taught an all-day class as part of a monthly series organized by Nancy and Grace. It was the last session of the year. There were about twenty students, and I spent the day answering their many questions. It was a fun meeting and a glorious day to be out on the road. 

October 17, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

This morning we had 20 F at 6 AM. That should have been cold enough to damage apples on the trees, but they all seemed to be OK.  I spent the morning describing and photographing a number of varieties in our orchards that are fruiting for the first or second time. In the afternoon I picked five bushels of Redfields as well as lesser amounts of many other cultivars in the BRC and around the farm. The weather was clear and cool.  It was a glorious day to be outdoors on the farm.

Redfield apples

October 16, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

I led a zoom webinar on describing an apple for the University of Idaho’s Heritage Orchard series.  All the attendees were asked to obtain several Honeycrisp apples from a local source and “follow along with Bunk.” The primary goal was to teach everyone the parts of the apple while also getting a sense of what phenotypic characteristics remain consistent from location to location around the country. We hope that attendees will send in their descriptions so we can learn from what they observed.  In the morning, apple photographer William Mullen and Ryan Williams came for a too-short visit and tour of the farm.

Ryan Williams and William Mullan visit the farm, October 16, 2024

October 15, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Cammy and I spent much of day at the Apple Farm in Fairfield picking apples for the CSA. We were joined by Khris and Lizzie Hogg.  We picked small amounts of Milden, Windham Russet, Hudson’s Golden Gem, Frostbite (MN 447) and Roxbury Russet, as well larger amounts of Winter Banana and Gray Pearmain. Gray Pearmain is one of our favorite dessert (fresh eating) varieties that probably originated in Skowhegan, only a few miles from the Apple Farm. It is a beautiful, partly russeted Pearmain that actually does have a pear-like flavor. (Most “pear” mains do not!) Morning temperature at Super Chilly Farm was 26F. Winter is coming.

October 14, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

A box of the amazing Knobbed Russet at Scott Farm, Dummerston Vermont, October 2024

I spent much of the day indoors working on apple ID’s. Despite the sparse crop in central Maine, there is still much to identify.  We received more much-needed rain. It’s been quite dry since Labor Day, and the ponds are all low. The ducks were very happy to be out in the rain all day. 

October 13, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Scott Farm’s Heirloom Apple Day

Laura Sieger and I gave two talks at Scott Farm’s Heirloom Apple Day to large, enthusiastic crowds. We each selected our four favorite apples and then related them to our own lives and the history of apples. It was a rainy day in Vermont, but the event was well attended and everyone was in good spirits.  It was great to be there. 

October 12, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Erin Robinson and Casey Darrow in front of a Northern Spy tree planted by Casey’s great-grandfather in 1918

Alyssa Gavlik and I spent much of the day with Erin Robinson of Scott Farm in Dummerston, VT where they grow dozens of rare varieties including many I’d heard of but never seen. We spent hours exploring their orchards, looking at apples they haven’t been able to identify since the past manager left, and talking about all things apples. Later we were joined by Laura Sieger and Sean Turley. The five of us went to Green Mountain Orchards in nearby Putney, Vermont where Casey Darrow and his family have grown apples and small fruit—particularly blueberries—for multiple generations.

October 11, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

It was a picture-perfect Maine fall day - clear skies and cool temps. The trees were singing. It was one of those moments when it felt like there was no one else on Earth. We picked some of the many unusual varieties fruiting at the Finley Lane orchard for the first time. Some may have great potential for fresh eating, cider or cooking.