Apple branchfall

 

Our apple tree is overproducing this year. It’s on a two year rotation for production but the stars aligned this spring and it is covered in fruit. It’s been shedding small apples for a month or so—they hit the roof of the van in the middle of the night and wake me up. It also seriously needs a pruning; I missed three years in a row and it is now too big for me to do well. The combined extra fruit and need for  a prune—along with, I suspect, a dry spring—led to a major branch break yesterday morning. I went out to haul in the trash cans from a pick up and a big branch was blocking the sidewalk. A couple of dogs were eying it nervously and crossed the street to avoid it. I sighed, brought out the loppers, and cleared the sidewalk. Later in the afternoon, I finished the job and cut back the branch, picked up all of the fruit, broke down the big branches into smaller ones that fit into the garbage bins (easier to haul back to the compost), and generally cleaned up.

We were left, after clean-up, with wheelbarrow full of apples. Mark came home, looked at the fruit, and headed inside, hoping it would go away. Are they even ripe? He asked. Yes, they were. We needed to press them. Pressing apples looms large in the tasks he would rather not do; we borrowed a finicky press for several years before we got our own, the summer of the pandemic, and that is what he remembers. Even with the new press, it’s a project.

1.       Gather all the fruit

2.       Haul the press out of the greenhouse and wash it off

3.       Find the knives, cutting boards, yellow bowl, and huge pasta pot for boiling the juice

4.       Set up the cuisinart and run the extension cord

5.       Quarter apples. Try and cut out most of the wormy spots.

6.       Chop apples in cuisinart.

7.       Dump in press. Repeat eight times.

8.       Press the juice into the yellow bowl

9.       Empty the pressed apples into a five gallon bucket to take back to the compost

10.   Quarter and chop more apples

11.   Press

12.   When all of the apples are pressed, clean up. Use the hose on the table and press.

13.   Compost all the residual apples, pulp, etc.

14.   Wash quart jars to hold juice

15.   Wash all tools

16.   Heat juice to kill the worms you may have missed

17.   Can juice

18.   Cool and bring downstairs

 

We actually moved pretty efficiently last night and pressed seven quarts of apple juice for the winter. The tree is still loaded. I am hoping no more branches break.