October 20, 2010

from apple::to cider

i posted a few times about our four apple trees. it was time yesterday to get all the apples, collect and bring them to the cider mill.
all of us had fun collecting and we were glad that at the time out there it wasn't raining. the weather has been very flaky and i would not have chosen to do the work today, but we had to. the reason being, that we do not own a car and second, the cider mill of the nearby farmer is pressing on thursdays. i reserved a mobility car for the afternoon and we got to work.


dressed up in rain gear and warm hats we went out to the orchard.


these are boskoop, a tart kind. although it was really time for them to be harvested, and yes they were sweeter as i expected.


the other kind of apples are "suurgrauech" i could not find an english name for them... anyway it's an old variety and the apples would have been fine to store. but we decided because the tree didn't produce a lot this year, we would put them in the same batch as the boskoop and make cider.

:: i know this post should have been worked on some more. the plan was to go to the cider mill today an watch our apples being processed!
instead we went for a hike, up to the castle kyburg, made a camp fire and grilled sausages for lunch!
o well, i leave you with the unfinished post. we enjoyed the wonderful sunny autumn day. my friend is still sitting in the sun knitting...

1 comment:

Eileenmc said...

I wish I had thought of pressing the apples from my tree this past fall. The tree was buried under a bush 4 years ago. Since I cleared the area out around it, it's grown well every year but I didn't expect it to produce apples but it did! Beautiful green juicy apples but they appeared to have worm holes in them so we couldn't eat many of them.

I fertilized the free well in the fall and will have it sprayed in the spring and hope for a bountiful harvest in the fall. If so I'll definitely press some of them.