Not sure how to explain it, but this has been a great year for apples in our part of Maine!
Also for plums and blueberries, maybe every other kind of fruit, but most certainly for apples. The Backler clan joined Wendy and me in taking full advantage of this new alignment of the apple stars. First we rediscovered a small orchard just around the corner (Mount Nebo Orchard). Then we harvested apples from our own trees which this year bore plentiful and nearly blemish-free fruit. (We planted these trees twenty years ago and have never had much out of them before now.)
The Mount Nebo Orchard was a great surprise. The orchard had been somewhat in decline in recent seasons following the death of its original owner, but a couple of years ago Jeff and Sandi Wiles took on management. They brought in a team to trim and clean, generally restoring trees and grounds to their former robust condition. This investment, along with whatever natural forces were at work, resulted in a truly spectacular crop this year. Beyond standard Maine varieties – McIntosh, Cortland, and Delicious – we jumped at the chance to try a number of lesser known strains – Pumpkin Sweet, Macoun, Winter Banana, and Turley Winesap (and that’s just to name a few!).
When we got back to our farm, the Backler boys pulled several additional McIntosh bushels off Morningside trees. By this point we were scratching our collective heads – what were we going to do with all these apples? We had eaten several fresh off the tree, of course, and we would store several more in a cool dry place to keep them crisp for later in the season. Abe and Silas were more than happy to help “Granny Wiz” in the making of a couple of prize-winner apple pies, but that would still claim only a small portion of our remarkable harvest. What to do with all these apples? The answer (of course): cider!
The whole crew got involved in hauling the remaining fruit to the cider mill, coming home with several gallons of this sweet New England elixir, the very essence of fall in our part of the country. We froze a bunch and will be drinking it through the winter. We thought about trying to “harden” some, too, ruminating about generations of Dunns who had made cider on our place in years long past and recalling stories of revenue officers visiting the farm during Prohibition! Huge barrels in our cellar attest to a prodigious output!
Yes, this has been a great year – and this is a great place – for apples.