If you were to see the apple before it might flummox you. It would have a dull white haze muting the skin color. It also would be a bit tacky from the oils in our sprays. We suspect that you wash your apple before eating it, even if it comes from us. Someday, perhaps, we can streamline and remove redundancy by selling an apple straight from the tree. Until then, we hand wash each and every apple that is destined for market. It takes almost the same amount of time to wash a bushel. as it does to pick. Then it has to air dry.
This year our ugly ratio has gone way up. I attribute much of it to an extreme lack of rain. It is in my mind, the driest of the nine years here on the hill. Much of the summer was taken up in keeping the new transplants from this spring and last hydrated. Several times I thought of trebling my efforts and irrigating the legacy plantings that have finally started to come on line. I think I would have run the irrigation well dry had I tried.
With so many malformed fruit, it was time to start pressing fresh cider. Cobbed together a Franken-Press, pictures coming, and we have never looked back. Thanks to everyone that was looking forward to a crop of eaters being satisfied with some fresh cider. Hopefully next year the balance will return towards the majority being eaters. Either way, we will be washing each consumable fruit by hand, the Luddite way, as if time stands stihl...
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