For those of you who live somewhere near the southern Maine town of Wells, I’ll be giving a talk at the Great Works Regional Land Trust on Wednesday, October 28 at 6:30 PM. The event will be held at the Meeting House, 938 Post Road (US Rt 1) in Wells. It would be a pleasure to see you there.
Great Maine Apple Display, October 25 2026
Another frigid morning. Is it already winter? Today was MOFGA’s annual Great Maine Apple Day. Several hundred apple enthusiasts gathered for an afternoon of tasting apples, attending workshops and demonstrations, checking out poster-displays, pressing cider, getting their mystery apples identified and about anything else you can think of that’s apple-related. It was a perfect way to spend a glorious, clear blue October day.
I spent most of the afternoon at a table attempting to identify apples. I was joined by a talented crew of fruit explorers featuring Todd Little-Siebold, Sean Turley, Laura Sieger, Skylar Bodeo-Lomicky and several College of the Atlantic students. We were busy all afternoon. At the end of the day, I left with over a hundred bags of apples still to be ID’ed - sign of a busy winter ahead.
Liz and Orea, stars of the bottling crew
It was another cold morning on the farm. Down near +18F at dawn. That’s cold. A gang of us were into cider all day. First off we needed to bottle last year’s cider so we could use the barrel again this year. We syphoned the cider into bottles, adding a bit of sugar to each bottle. The sugar causes the cider to become sparkling over the course of the next year. This 2025 pressing will be ready to drink in 2027. Delayed gratification!
At the same time, we were busy grinding and pressing apples in the cider house. Once the barrel was nearly empty, we refilled it with this year’s juice. We left a few gallons of last year’s fermented cider in the barrel like sour dough starter. Today’s pressing included Fuel Service, Redfield, Niedzwetzkyana, Tolman Sweet, Dabinett, Kingston Black, and small amounts of a couple dozen other cultivars we’ve picked over the past month. Once the barrel was full, we pressed an additional nine bushels of Tolman Sweet that we’ll turn into apple molasses. We were cleaning up as darkness descended along with the cold, dry air that’s been a regular visitor this fall. We then gathered around the dining table where all good days should end.
“Pink Flamingo” October 23, 2026
It continues to be abnormally cold in central Maine. It was cold all day today, and cold temperatures are predicted for tonight. Some apples were damaged last Saturday night—even on the tree—and more may be damaged tonight. If you have apples still on your trees, it’s time to get them off and into the cellar. Do it now.
Today I taught an apple class for students at Colby College. I should have been picking apples.
Sennebec Russet tree, Union, ME
I made a trip to The Apple Farm on the Back Road in Fairfield where they’ve had an excellent crop this year. They still have lots of apples. Tucked away on a north-facing hillside, there are a few rows where we grafted back-ups of at-risk, historic cultivars several years ago. I wanted to check them out.
I was able to pick four of them: Kennebec Russet, Green Monster and Sasanoa and Sennebec Russet. All four are provisional names. Kennebec Russet is still alive and growing near the new Sidney off-ramp of rte 95 in Waterville. (It’s name is the most likely of the four to be correct.) Green Monster may be a seedling though it’s growing in a row in a old farm orchard in Waldo. Sasanoa is a Rhode Island Greening sport from a long-abandoned, overgrown orchard south of Bath. That source tree is almost certainly dead.
Sennebec is the oldest of the four and the most historically valuable. Dan Newman found the ancient tree (also now dead) on the Sennebec Road in Union (thus the provisional name). The DNA profile showed it to be a child of the golden russet type we call GR2. That confirmed that GR2 itself has to be really old. Sennebec might be the local cultivar known as Union Russet.
The specimens I collected of all four apples were in beautiful shape. They are just a few of the jewels we’ve discovered over the years. Come see them and taste them at the Great Maine Apple Day this coming Sunday (October 25) at MOFGA in Unity. It’s from Noon to 4 PM. See you there!
Yellow Bellflower, Jefferson Maine
Today was the day to pick most of the keepers. We were joined by our friend Brett who drove up from Boston to spend a splendid fall day in the orchard. It was great fun to have him along. We finished up as darkness descended.
Brett’s favorite this year was Yellow Bellflower. We got our scionwood from two ancient trees in Jefferson, about a half hour south of the farm. Yellow Bellflower was one of the first out-of-state cultivars to be planted in Maine. When you see an ancient tree in Maine in the fall with somewhat conic, yellow fruit, there’s a good chance it’s Yellow Bellflower. They taste good now and keep most of the winter.
Most of the apples we picked today will improve in storage. Here’s a list. All are correctly ID’ed except where noted. We still have more picking to do, including Black Oxford, Roxbury Russet, Stark, Wickson, and a few others. But we’re nearly all picked out.
Adam’s Pearmain (dropping)
Aroostook Sunset
Baldwin
Blake
Blue Pearmain
Cherryfield (unidentified, matches midwestern Salome)
Esopus Spitzenburg (dropping)
Green Monster (unidentified Maine—possibly from seed)
Guptil Lavender (Belgrade unidentified ancient grafted)
Hurlbut (dropped)
King David
Lincolnville Russet (unidentified large old Maine russet)
Mann
Northwestern Greening
Reinette Simarenko
Scout (Frostbite x Cherryfield) SCF seedling
Smokehouse
Wagener (mostly dropped)
Yellow Bellflower
Apple picking time
The chilly mornings continue. No heat in sight. Good weather to cool down the rootcellar.
The late-season picking is like a game of chicken. Your two cars are driving towards the edge of the cliff. Who jumps out first is the chicken. Is it James Dean or Sal Mineo? Don’t get your sleeve caught on the door handle. In the world of apples, how long do you dare to leave them on the tree? You wait, you wait, you wait and then, darn! They freeze and are all ruined. Better luck next year. Or do you wait until the last minute and then spring into action and pick them in the dark with headlamps and gloves, just before the old chevy flies over the cliff and the whole world freezes, but the apples are safe and sound in the root cellar? I prefer scenario B. So it looks as though we pick everything this week.
Tolman Sweet with signature suture line
Well below freezing in the orchard this morning. Will this damage the apples on the ground or on the trees? The general consensus is that apples still on the tree are less vulnerable than on the ground. Once they detach from the branch, they are on their own. That being said, sometimes they are safer nestled in the grass or in the Goldenrod.
I collected a few bushels of Tolman Sweet this morning from a neighbor’s tree. About half were already on the ground, and the other half I shook down. I’m going to press them all into cider and so didn’t bother to segregate them. When I press them this week, I should get a sense of how they fared.
There are still more apples to pick on the farm. I generally wait closer to Halloween, but cold nighttime temperatures are predicted so it seems prudent to pick everything this week. The late cultivars will go into the cooler and then into the root cellar in a week or two.
Update on the Ginkgo. Yesterday was “ice out” so to speak. In the morning the fluttering began, by evening the tree was bare, and on the ground, a carpet of golden yellow leaves.
Today I went on an all-day pomological excursion. First stop was to Winthrop to drop off some old wooden barrels at Absolem cider. We haven’t used them in years, and it was time to move them along. Maybe they’re reusable or maybe they’ll make great decorations or beverage tables. Absolem is one of the farm to table places that have sprung up in Maine in recent years. We’ve been several times and always had fun. Highly recommended if you’re anywhere near Winthrop.
Next stop, Morris Towle’s old orchard just down the road from Absolem. Morris Towle was a mailman and apple collector in the mid-twentieth century. Sadly we never met, but I learned about him from multiple sources. He was instrumental in saving a number of historic Maine apples. I’ve been to his orchard a few times over the years and have a copy of his orchard map. Today the current owner, Dereck Glaser, showed me several trees that had fruited for the first times since he’s owned the place. One is particular is of great interest. It had only one fruit left which is now safely in my cooler. Time to get out the books.
I left Dereck and drove slowly the back way to Brunswick looking for old trees. I found a beautiful orchard in Bowdoin. Although most of the apples were on the ground (It’s been windy), the fruit was in good shape, and I was able to identify all the trees: two massive Baldwins, one King of Tompkins County, several Macs, one Wolf River and two Ben Davis. Nothing too out of the ordinary but really beautiful.
Givens apple? October 17, 2026
A few miles later, still in Bowdoin or maybe Topsham, I found what I was looking for. A huge, ancient, fence-line tree with fruit. I stopped and was able to retrieve a few of the last fruit. (Half the canopy was in the cow pasture so I declined hopping the fence.) Could this be the long-lost Givens apple we’ve been searching for?
The big event of the day was leading an afternoon apple tasting in Harpswell for about thirty adventurous tasters, sponsored by Harpswell Heritage Apples. It was held in an old, open, very drafty barn, and everyone was bundled up. I selected 15 cultivars ranging from roadside seedlings to famous historic favorites to modern introductions with every flavor profile I could muster from sweet to tart and everything in between. I had fun, and I think the chilly apple tasters did as well. It was a good day all around.
Rain returned to the farm. It’s a good pattern, especially if it keeps up. The ponds are filling albeit slowly. Rain brings me indoors, and indoors means apple identifications. I have bags and boxes and more bags and more boxes of apples awaiting names. They’re coming in like the tide and piling up like driftwood on the shore.
For decades doing apple ID’s in the fall and winter has been almost entirely a solo act. Everyone else in the world is at work or off doing something at least marginally more productive. Not me. I’m attempting to put a name on an apple. As far as the apple is concerned, it has no name and never did have one. I open a bag and gently pour the apples out onto the table, set them up like bowling pins or maybe cocktail glasses and stare at them. If I’m lucky, I know the apple. Voila. Northern Spy. Next bag please.
This year I’m trying a two-person version of the ID process. Skylar is helping. Although she’s excited about spending hours staring at apple after apple after apple, she has a lot to learn. Even using a searchable key—which we have—you have to know where to jump in with each new apple. It’s a challenge. It takes time and a certain kind of experience, the kind that opens the doors of possibilities. So Skylar and I tag team. I have a hunch and pass the apples to her to research variety X or Y. Today it worked quite well.
Paradise!
The internet, by the way, is useless. AI seems to butt into all inquiries and messages without being asked, and it is hellbent on identifying apples as “Paradise.” Whenever someone asks me about their “Paradise” apples, I know they’ve been dealing with the devil, the devil being the internet who does not know how to ID apples…yet. It looks at your apple which can be red, yellow, russet, large, small or just about anything else and declares: Paradise. (Spending your life with apples and orchards is paradise so I guess AI isn’t entirely wrong.)
Ginkgo biloba, October 15, 2026
Skylar and I picked apples much of the day, including Frostbite (MN 447), Redfield, Tolman Sweet, Hubbardston Nonesuch, MN 1734 (aka Minnesota Russet) and Melody Maker. These are the first of the keepers that should store well in the root cellar into late winter or even spring. Next week it will be time to pick the long-term keeping apples, the true heavy hitters in the storage department.
The foliage on our twenty-five year old Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) tree has turned its fall yellow. I found the tree at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens growing in the composted innards of a huge, old, hollow crabapple tree. It was one of a couple of tiny, young seedlings that probably had been tucked away by an industrious squirrel who intended to come back later for a Ginkgo meal but got distracted. I liberated it from its dark hideaway, gently wrapped the roots in wet newsprint and brought it home. Now it’s about 20 feet tall. Sometime soon, all the leaves will flutter to the ground in a single day (or maybe two). This morning the entire tree was glowing an electric, psychedelic, golden-yellow as the sun rose and began to shine through the white pines.
Sorting apples, October 14, 2026
Today we emptied the cooler of several dozen bushels of apples and sorted out fruit destined for cider, compost, possible sale and our own use in the coming months. It wasn’t a banner year on the farm, but we do have a lot of apples. Most of what we have on hand now are not true storage apples. They’ll keep for another month or two but not much longer. We’ll begin picking the earliest of the winter keepers tomorrow. The rest we’ll pick over the next ten days or so. We want to leave them on the trees as long as possible. They won’t be ripe when we pick them, but they’ll be closer than they are now. They’ll continue to ripen in the root cellar over the next few months. We hope to still be cooking apples in early June. By the end of October everything should be off the trees, and we’ll put away the picking buckets and the ladders for another season.
Got some much needed rain today, just shy of an inch. All the farm ponds are still way down including some that are just mud. But this is helping. More rain is predicted later in the week.
The rain keeps me indoors which means apple ID’s. I’m trying out the new system for keeping track of the apples, the photographs, the contact information of the submitters and so forth. So far, so good.
Doing ID’s actually is fun, but I can get a bit stir-crazy after several hours. So I look for periodic distractions, like switching up the music or rummaging through apples that we grow but I’ve never given any attention to - “4473” for instance. 4473 is one of the first seedlings I grew from Frostbite (aka MN 447). Unlike our other MN 447 crosses, 4473 looks quite similar to its mother. In fact, you could mix them up. But the flavor is distinctive and quite good. I thought it had a bit of a carrot flavor. I’ll DNA profile it to see if we can determine the pollen parent. I’ll also find it a proper name. (Carrot Top?)
Make Cider, Not …………
Good to be back on the farm after three days away. Not the best time to leave (it’s apple season), but it was an excellent trip, nonetheless. Now I can refocus on the farm: firewood, garden cleanup, potato harvest, garlic planting and, of course, lots more apples picking. I need to press cider again soon if for no other reason than to generate some space in the cooler which is now more than brimming over. Fortunately the temperatures are falling, and I can start to move apples to the root cellar.
We started filling the bird feeder about a week ago. The Bluejays were quick to find the free food. Now the fall travelers are also beginning to appear. Today several Goldfinches swooped in, possibly on their way south for the winter. Or maybe they’re just a bunch of locals, back from checking out Canada this summer. No passports needed.
Last day in Vermont. In the early morning our hosts, Marina Garland and Hank Ainley, gave me a personal tour of their farm. The centerpiece is a massive old wooden barn, roughly 80 feet by 40 feet and multiple stories high. At one time you could find these elegant structures throughout all of rural New England. They are the cathedrals of a long-ago thriving farm culture. Their loss has been one of the cultural tragedies of the twentieth century. How could we allow these incredible buildings to crumble, collapse and die?
Forty-one year old Fedco Tree “Minnesota 1734,” October 11, 2026
One of the highlights of my tour was seeing four apple trees that Hank’s mom, Julie, purchased from the second Fedco Trees catalog back in 1985 when the “catalog” was three sheets of 8 1/2” x 14” paper stapled in the upper left-hand corner. The trees looked great. I felt like I was seeing my children. I’m sure I had handled each of the se trees forty-one years ago when they were just a stick! One apple is an orange and reddish russet that they couldn’t identify. I took some fruit and when Skylar saw it, she ID’ed it instantly as MN 1734. I looked at the old order sheet when I got back to the farm and, yes, Fedco had sold “MINNESOTA” in ’85. (No “1734” in the name, but it’s definitely the same apple.) The brief Fedco description includes a fun typo: “fichly flavored.”
Later in the morning I returned to Scott Farm for their annual apple festival. It was a large and enthusiastic crowd. Todd Little-Siebold and I gave two talks. We picked some apples. because we couldn’t resist, and then we headed back to Maine in the rain.
Willis Wood, October 10, 2026
It’s a crystal clear autumn day in southern Vermont. I’m on the road with the College of the Atlantic apple class. This morning we visited Woods Cider Mill in Springfield, VT where I had the pleasure of meeting Willis Wood who’s been pressing cider seven days a week for nearly fifty apple seasons. It was wonderful to listen to his talk about the their operation and to see the 19th century, simple, slow and mesmerizing, belt-driven cider press as well as the steaming wood-fired, maple-syrup-pan-set-up for boiling down the cider into their signature cider syrup and cider jelly.
From there we continued on to visit Erin Robinson who gave us a tour of the orchards at Scott Farm in Dummerston and Lily Dutton, a former COA student and intern on our farm, who gave us a tour of her family’s orchards and the Dutton Farm Stand in Newfane.
Up early and drove to Poverty Lane Orchard/ Farnum Hill Cider in Lebanon, NH to join up with the College of the Atlantic apple class. The owner, Steve Wood, has been incredibly generous with his time over the years to me, Fedco Trees, the “COA” apple class and hundreds (or thousands) of others. It’s hard to imagine the apple cider renaissance without Steve’s inspiration and immeasurable contributions.
After the students headed off to their next stop, I sat and chatted with Steve and then visited my favorite apple spot at Poverty Lane — the“Two Below” orchard where he topworked several dozen unusual cider, dessert and culinary cultivars many years ago. It’s like a library of apples you’re unlikely to see almost anywhere else and a wonderful place to wander, taste and learn. And dream. Later in the day I rejoined the apple class in Vermont for a tour of a beautiful old orchard of huge “standard” trees.
Miner and his namesake and Helen, Miner, October 8, 2026
Rain early and clearing. The orchard has had lots of visitors this season. Two are visiting now. Mac and Helen are longtime friends, and it’s great to have them here. Today Mac and I cleaned up drops in the orchard, toured Finley and did some tasting. Frostbite (447) is ready to pick and tasting its usual fantastic. Scout (a seedling of Frostbite) is closing in on perfection and starting to taste really good too.
Mac’s name is actually not Mac. Although all his friends call him Mac, his name is Miner. Miner sounds like Minor which is the opposite of Major. One of our seedlings is a child of the well-known English bittersweet, Major. So why not call the seedling Miner? Right next to our Miner tree is a second seedling. We call that one Helen.
Both Miner and Helen fruited for the first time this year. We had 4 Helen apples. It’s a seedling of Sweet Alford and might make a good cooking apple. I was hoping to save the Helen to give to Helen but alas, they were gone by a few weeks ago. We did, however, still have our one Miner apple and topped off a fun evening with a “Miner tasting.” Despite being a momentous occasion, the sad fruit was admittedly a couple of weeks beyond its prime. Nonetheless, with great ceremony, we sliced it up. It was not exactly a hit. (“Minor League?”) It wasn’t totally booed off stage but, hey, it was the first apple, and no one ever said it was going to be a dessert fruit. When we get a few more… we’ll make cider!
The sun came out, and we picked all day. First what I call the South China Sweet. It’s a triple-trunked seedling and a true low-acid sweet. We got five bushels. We then drove a few miles to the roadside seedling Weeks Mills Bitter, a true bittersweet that Sean Turley discovered. It did not have much fruit ,and the tree had been mangled and half torn apart by one of those unforgiving machines that they use to “trim back” the sides of the roads. Another reason to graft your favorite seedlings back at your house. The poor tree is a total mess.
Foxwhelp, October 7, 2026
We spent the afternoon up at Finley picking everything that’s ready, which is a lot. In central Maine it’s time to pick the midseason cultivars. We picked the “Old Foxwhelp.” This may be the most important apples I’ve imported from the UK and the one I’m most excited about. As many of you know, Foxwhelp was misidentified for decades as trees and scionwood of an imposter were passed around. No one could figure out why the Brits revered this ancient cultivar until it became clear that we had the wrong apple. Now the true Foxwhelp has landed on this side of the Atlantic and has begun to spread across the landscape. It’s finally here. It is correct. And, if you need scionwood, we can provide.
Today I headed off to Mount Desert Island to assess the condition of a very old apple tree at an equally old estate. I’ve been to see the tree a number of times over the years, the first being in 2010. In all likelihood the tree is a seedling and well over 150 years old. Maybe 200 or more.
What are apparently the original trunks are still quite present though long since dead and laying on the ground in multiple directions. The current iteration of the tree consists of a dozen younger trunks—themselves all extremely old—that rise and twist and turn and curve and plunge into the ground in several spots and then rise up again to twist and turn some more. The canopy is nearly 75 feet across, 300 feet in circumference and yet only about 15 feet high. Within that space has developed an entire eco-system. Its amazing. Mesmerizing.
I took photos and samples of the fruit and foliage, and measurements of the shoot growth. I explored the tree (it’s that big) and mostly just felt awestruck by its age, its beauty its regality and its longevity. This is the type of apple tree that should be in the genetics of the apples of the future. It’s seen it all, and its been through every conceivable challenge. It’s got what it takes.
On the way back to Palermo, we took time to check out a few seedlings (it’s fall). We also stopped to pick apples from the original Fuel Service tree in Penobscot. It’s a favorite bittersweet seedling. It’s small and nondescript and won’t win any awards for majesty, but it make a good cider.