Hands On Earth Orchard

This was some really good cider. Off-season cider is often juiced with a bit of sugar and other adulterants...but this was just silty and strong apple juice all the way to the bottom. Thank you Hands On earth Orchard. More here.

Beechwood Orchards

At Rittenhouse Square market people stand in line for apples. Based in Biglerville, PA and has been in continual operation for over 100 years. Besides the strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, cherries, grapes, peaches, and nectarines they also grow over 45 varieties of apples

Pennsylvania Apples

A bookmark I picked up at a fair...

Hans Herr House

 I visited the Hans Herr House at Snitzfest and They had laid out a cornucopia of apples to taste. I tried easily a dozen apples I'd never even seen previously. I'll just list them all off now:

Baldwin
Belleflower
Chenango Strawberry
Cox Orange Pippin
Doctor of Germantown
Dutchess of Oldenburg
Gravenstein
Grimes Golden
Hyslop Crabapple
Lady
Laxton's Superb
Maiden's Blush
McIntosh
Northern Spy
Pound
Red Astrachan
Roxbury Russett
Sheepnose (Black Gilliflower)
Smokehouse
Spitzenburg
Stayman Winesap
Summer Rambo
Tollman Sweet
Washington Strawberry
Watermelon (unknown variety even to them)
Winter Banana
York Imperial

Dries Orchard

I visited Dries Orchard a few weeks back. [LINK] While their selection of apples was excellent, their own brand of cider was pretty bad. It was watery, bland and neither sweet nor tart, nor acidic. It was kind of like slightly brown water. On the upside they had a nice crisp pint of Ginger Golds and Ida Reds waiting for me

Farm Stand Stop

The farm stand had no apparent name.

But they had a nice stock of Granny Smiths and Macintosh.

Apple Cider Slushy

Knoebels Amusement park has a stand shaped like an apple that sells candy apples, caramel apples and apple cider slushys. It was my first apple cider slushy but it will not be the last.

Oylers Organic Cider

I drank most of a quart of cider today. I could have shared better. It was from Oylers Organic Farms in Biglerville, PA and certified organic by PCO.I'm not a stickler for organic produce or cider for that matter, but this was some good cider. It was sweet, complex and very cloudy giving it a heavy rich taste I'd almost equate with chocolate. Damn fine stuff.

18th Century Purity Farm

The 18th Century Purity Farm has so many heirloom varieties. They are truly amazing.I encountered their farm stand inside the Coventry Farmers Market.They carry some of the oldest Apple varieties in America. I am deeply impressed.

Tolman Sweet
Mutsu (Crispen)
Newtown Pippin
Roxbury Russett
Black Gilliflower
Westfield Seek-No-Futher
Golden Russett
Esopus Spitzenburg
Fameus (Snow Apple)
Yellow Bellflower
Northern Spy
Winesap
Irish Peach apple
Caville Blanc  

Which Apples For What?

Fedco is amazing at this sort of thing. Leave it to an enclave of agrarian anarchist hippies to work out which applies should best be used for what purpose. Is that a desert apple? Is it a baking apple?  Could it be used as a cider apple?  Fedco knows.

Apples in Queens

I was in Queens and looking for tacos, or kabobs.. anything except a Hookah bar. That's a tall order around Steinway. But on a side street I found overflowing bins of apples. It held me over until lunch happened later on.

Summer Rambos

Summer Rambos and Honey Crisps, the season has truly begun. There are many early season apples: Jonogold, Mott's Pink, Queen Cox and even some Gravensteins. But most very early seasonal apples are soft, I prefer the more tart firm apples, really starting with the classic Granny Smith and moving up the scale.

there is no apple core

Kauffman Fruit Farm

For offf-season cider this was great!  Amos L. Kauffman started planting the Kauffman Fruit Farm in in Bird-in-Hand Pennsylvania  back in 1911. Five generations later the family is still running it and it tastes like they know what they're doing.

Union Square Apples

I stopped in Union Square in New York City on a Saturday morning and found apples. These were not fresh picked. These have been refrigerated and packed in a controlled atmosphere cold, humid, nitrogen rich and low in CO2.

This is not new. a century ago clever orchard keepers packed their ice house with sacks of lime. The lime oxidized into Calcium carbonate stripping the air of CO2 in the process. I ate many and while not at their peak, many were quite good. Except the Lady Apples. Those are terrible even fresh, strictly decorative.

Pennsylvania Farmer Magazine

Caption-less cover image of girl picking apples in Pennsylvania 1962, from Pennsylvania Farmer Magazine. .

Lyndale Stand

Ida red, Melrose, Mutsu, Gala, Empire... It's the end of the season, but the late yielding trees still make a last stop at the Lyndale farm stand worthwhile. Right beside the Boston Turnpike it's an easy stop on a nice detour. You can find more Connecticut farm stands here.

Shirey Brothers Orchard

Owned jointly by the three Shirey brothers, Eugene, Andrew,and Stephen Shirey, this farm resides in Berks county Pennsylvania. Located at 1259 Old Airport rd. in Douglassville, you can see the apple trees from the road. I found their apples at a chain grocery store, prominently displayed but not labeled by type which is a minus.

Unionville cart

That's the setting sun, not the rising sun on those apples. At a farmers cart in Unionville, a hired hand was selling apples, pears, Lima beans and some greens. The apples were not labeled at all but Golden Delicious, Gala, Granny Smith, Macintosh, and others were easily identified.

Monolith Apples

Monolith apples are actually a recent Pennsylvania cultivar developed by North Star Orchards. It's firm, very tart but still sweet and has a bit of distinguishing russeting around the stem. It's a red and green blush apple that ripens in late August.They haven't revealed the lineage but they don't have to. they just have to keep growing them. It's the best new apple I've tasted in years.