September 7, 2026

Another day of picking plums. Our old Kahinta tree had the largest crop of any of the plums, close to 130 pounds. It broke one branch earlier in the summer due to the weight of the fruit, and I suppose it could have “weighed in” at 150. Not only have the plum trees been impressively bountiful this year, the fruit quality has been outstanding. Hardly a cull in the lot.

We’ve been selling plums to a few of our favorite farm stands as well as to John’s Ice Cream in Liberty. Late in the day I headed back to John’s with another forty pounds. It was the third delivery to them in the past month. As I carried a ten-pound crate in past the line of customers, I felt like a celebrity. Lots of smiles and comments. “I saw your plums on their facebook page!” Although I’m a vanilla and chocolate kind of guy, I must say their plum ice cream has been particularly good this summer. Must be the plums.

September 6, 2026

We got about 50 lbs of Gracious plums from the old tree I grafted and planted the same year as the Waneta and Kahinta. I obtained the scionwood for all three hardy, hybrid-type plums in about 1982. It was long before any DNA profiling, and there was not a lot of widespread interest in the hybrids.

Kahinta and Waneta and most other hybrid plums were crossed, selected and introduced by Niels Hanson during the first half of the twentieth century. Gracious was one of the few exceptions. It was selected at the Northern Great Plains Field Station in Mandan, ND, in 1957. It is a cross of two hybrids, both of which include the Japanese plum, “Burbank” as one parent.

I began to suspect that our Gracious might be incorrect some years later when I became familiar with the fruit. The fruit was delicious, but the literature said that Gracious was freestone. Our “Gracious” was not freestone. Freestone hybrid plums are rare. Had I received the wrong wood? Did I mix up the scions when grafting? I had obtained scionwood from a few dozen different plum cultivars that year, but none of the others turned out to be freestone either. This evening I poked around on the internet and found a few sites that include information about Gracious. One is the Montana Fruit Company. Maybe it’s time to purchase a tree of their Gracious, wait a few years, and see if theirs is… freestone.

We had a funny weather pattern today, one not picked up on at all by the official weather folks. They showed zero chance of rain all day, but we had showers—some heavy—throughout the day. Was it really raining? I’m pretty sure it was!

September 5, 2026

Yesterday was a very big day at Super Chilly - I harvested the first Helen apples ever in the world! I’d been watching them all summer, wanting to be certain not to miss them when they began to drop. As I was coming in from the orchard, two were on the ground and three more were still in the tree. They picked easily so I grabbed them all. Helen is an open-pollinated seedling of the English cider apple, Sweet Alford. The pollen parent is not known. Sweet Alford originated in Devon in the early 20th century.

I started “op” seeds from several English cider apples in about 2014. In 2017 I planted two of them side by side not far from the house. The other tree is a seedling of Major. The obvious name for that apple was Minor. Minor morphed into Miner, the name of a good friend and aspiring apple geek in Sudbury, MA, the ancestral home of Garden Royal, one of the best dessert apples ever. Miner is married to Helen and so the Sweet Alford seedling planted next to it acquired the name, Helen. Helen and Miner live on Hunt Road, so “voila” - Helen of Hunt. (If you can follow all this, you get today’s gold star.)

Helen of Hunt is medium-sized, mostly conic-shaped and opaque-yellow skinned with faint reddish stripes. There’s a bit a russeting in the cavity surrounding the stem. (For the record, the apple’s namesake, Helen, does not look like this.) Like Sweet Alford, the apple has no acidity. It’s bitter, slightly astringent, banana flavored, not juicy, firm but not crisp. The flesh is impressively tannic, turning brown almost instantly. (The real Helen is also sweet with a bit of sass.) I think the apple should make great cider or molasses.

Chestnut crab and Milwaukee are ready to pick. Chestnut is a wonderful dessert fruit, and Milwaukee is a large cooking apple. The true identify of Milwaukee may be in question. That’s a mystery I’ll save for another day.

September 4, 2026

Waneta plums, September 4, 2026

Today we picked the Waneta plums. We got about a hundred pounds from our one old tree, grafted in about 1980. I had been checking them daily and decided that this was the day. A few had skins were starting to turn translucent red, a sign that they’d better be eaten now. Most were still firm and will be perfect after a few days in the cooler.

Waneta fruit is round and slightly larger than a ping pong ball. The skin is a dark pinkish-red, and the juicy, sweet flesh is orange. The taste is delicious. The skins are edible although I like to bite into the skin, turn it inside out and slurp out the flesh.

Waneta is in a class of plums known as “Hybrid Plums.” They were mostly bred by Niels Hansen during the early 20th century. Hansen was born in Denmark and came to the US when he was still very young. He spent his life fruit exploring in Asia and breeding hardy plums, apples and other crops in South Dakota. He was the one who brought the red-fleshed apple, Niedzetzkyana, to the US. I would have loved have met him, but alas, Hansen died four days before I was born.

September 3, 2026

Apple ID’s at Super Chilly Farm

We actually got some rain today. It’s been so very dry now for over two months. We only got a little more than a half inch, not a lot, but who’s complaining? It sounds as though they’ve had too much rain in New York state this summer. We petitioned the Rain Gods to do a better job splitting up the moisture between them and us. We’ll keep trying.

It was wet enough to stay inside to do some desk work. Skylar continued the redesign of how we do apple ID’s. The new streamlined system should make it possible to look at many more apples efficiently this fall. If you have apples you’d like to ID, please be in touch. You can email us at idapples@mofga.org anytime now. We’ll get back to you with directions on what to do next. We will be updating the ID instructions on our website in the next few days.

By late afternoon the rain had stopped. I took a walk to check the next batch of plums to see if they’re ready to pick. Won’t be long.

September 2, 2026

Today we picked September Ruby and the Cambridge Gage. September Ruby is a super-hardy, small-medium sized, red apple with an oval-conic, ”Red Delicious" shape. (Don’t hold it against it.) It’s a good dessert fruit, one of Skylar’s favorites. It has a melon flavor, a crunchy texture and keeps about a month in the cooler. I received the scionwood about 25 years ago from Dwight Bradley who was living in Alaska at the time. It originated in Manitoba. Dwight also sent me scionwood for Yellow Jay.

We also picked our first decent crop (still only a bag-full) of Cambridge Gage (aka Cambridge Green Gage), a small, roundish, greenish, European-type plum. (Prunus domestica). It is totally unlike the large, red, juicy, hybrid-types. There are many “Gage” cultivars, the most famous being the original “Green Gage” aka Reine Claude. There is no record of their true origin although we’re fairly sure that it was somewhere in eastern Europe before 1600. All the Gages are coveted for there superior fresh eating.

In the afternoon I took a bushel of very nice Somerset of Maine, a box of Centennial Crabs and the last of our first quality Trailman to one of the local farmstands where I hope they’ll make people happy who happen to stop in to see what’s new.

September 1, 2026

The harvesting of apples and plums continues. We picked the Transcendent crabs, the last of the Trailman and the Somerset of Maine. Then the Hanska plums, a thin-skinned, hardy, hybrid type introduced by Niels Hansen. I’m closely watching the Waneta, Gracious, Toka and Kahinta. They’ll all be next.

In the evening I extracted 27 dark brown seeds from three Wealthy apples that I had hand-pollinated with Redfield pollen last spring. Wealthy is an superior, late-summer/early-fall, all-purpose cultivar. For generations it was assumed to be a seedling of “Cherry Crab.” DNA profiling has shown it to be a cross between Duchess of Oldenburg and Jonathan. The original story purported that Peter Gideon of Minnesota obtained seed of cherry crab from a grower in from Bangor, ME. That never made sense to me. Duchess crossed with Jonathan does.

Both Weathy and Redfield are fantastic pie apples, and we all know the world needs way more apple pies. Twenty-seven new red-fleshed pie apple cultivars might just do the trick for early fall. But fret not, I’ve also crossed Redfield with Black Oxford. That should do it for your winter pies!

August 31, 2026

David’s phone “under the plum tree, fast asleep”

The farm began its return to normality (if that’s possible) today. Cameron Peace, Dongyun Lee and David Castro headed back west to Pullman, WA and Boise, ID. Brandon Buza left for San Francisco and Dan Pucci made his way back to the Hudson Valley. It was a wonderful to have a houseful of people devoted to APPLES. David lost his cellphone, but I found it nestled under a plum tree.

Skylar and Mela picked the Maiden’s blush, more Trailmans, Sidrunkollane Talioun and Ivan, while I brought in loads of firewood with Kevin Clark and Dallas Houston of Rosehill Orchards. Bringing in firewood is a great farm activity with guests. It doesn’t take much focus, and you can get a lot done. You can chat, catch up, dream, philosophize, solve all the world’s woes and enjoy the beauty of the orchards and the woods all at the same time. Firewood is scattered in piles throughout the farm, and we need to get it in before it gets cold. By dinnertime we’d created a very large pile and done a lot of talking!

August 29-30, 2026

This weekend 150 apple lovers attended the 5th Maine Apple Camp. We do it every other year. Apple geeks from across the US swarmed in on Friday night and left just after noon on Sunday. It was a wildly fun and educational extravaganza of workshops, lectures and panel presentations on all aspects of apples, including cultivation, breeding, cider, genetics and more. There was swimming, dinners in the camp dining hall, T-shirt printing, cider sharing and a thousand conversations. What a wonderful way to spend an August weekend in Maine.

August 27-28, 2026

The Working Group, August 27, 2026

For two days a group we call The Historic Fruit Tree Working Group of North America met under the arbor here on the farm, shaded by grapes and surrounded by apple trees, to discuss the lofty goals of preserving and documenting the world’s apples. Our strategy has been to maximize collaboration between private, public and governmental Malus (apple) collections across the US and around the globe. Our current projects include creating a shared database and refining the process for confirming the true identity of the rare cultivars we’ve been finding before it’s too late and we lose this precious apple heritage.

The weather both days was perfect, the food great, the company the best, and we actually got a lot done. I think we all agree that we’re on the right track although we all know that we have a long way to go. Tomorrow we all head to Maine Apple Camp.

August 26, 2026

Trailman, August 26, 2026

Today we picked the Trailman - aways a big day on the farm. Trailman is the first truly superior dessert fruit of the season: crisp, juicy and just tart enough to excite even the dullest of taste buds. It typically ripens on August 20th so it’s a bit late this year. The fruit is small, oval, and porcelain yellow, and sometimes has a reddish blush. Trailman originated at the Beaver Lodge Research Station in Alberta, Canada and was introduced in 1973. It’s said to be a cross between Trail and Osman, although as far as I know, that’s yet to be confirmed by DNA profiling. I first tasted it at a NAFEX conference in Minnesota about 20 years ago and knew we had to grow it here. We now have two mature trees on standard seedling rootstock. The trees love it here in central Maine, and we get a full crop every year.

August 25, 2026

Today it was time to pick the Koidu Reinettes, Centennial Crab, Red China, more Pamela Plums and a seedling from the Isle Au Haut off the Maine coast. I’m calling it Gauguin after the famous French impressionist who spent a lot of time on another island, albeit far from Maine.

“Gauguin” was discovered by Andy Brennan and Polly Giragosian when they did a sweep inventory of every apple tree on Isle Au Haut. I went out and collected budwood with them from about a hundred seedlings and then bud-grafted them all on the farm. A couple years later I gave the trees to Andy and Polly, and they planted them at their New York farm.

Gauguin, August 25, 2026

Recently I found one tree left in our nursery that I somehow forgot to dig and send to them. The label said, “Cogan 0 Church Road First Right.” Fairly explicit but, as I recall, it didn’t match their own notes. So we never dug the tree. Now it’s happily fruiting for the third year. I could call it “Cogan 0 Church Road First Right” but I thought it needed a proper name. Cogan sounds like Gauguin. Isle Au Haut was settled at least for a while by French. The small, yellow apple has a muted, rosy pink-red blush and some russet netting—beautiful (like a Gauguin painting), and tasty, so voila!

August 24, 2026

Today I was interviewed on camera by Jen Ries and Daniel Falcone for a Fedco archival film. It was a deep dive back into the past fifty years or so. I had a chance to recount the beginnings of Fedco, the co-op system, the back-to-the-land movement and more. It was fun. Fedco actually began not as a seed and nursery company but as a food co-op. The seeds and then trees and potatoes and gardening supplies all came later.

I was also able to talk about leaving Fedco and how I view its future. Retiring from Fedco was something I was glad to do, though not because I didn’t enjoy the job. I spent over forty years there and loved it. But it was time to let others do what I got to do: that is, create and follow a vision. For the next generation to do that, I had to clear out. Which I did. And they have thrived in my absence. Thinking about all this turned out to be a rather nice way to spend a Monday morning in the orchard.

In the afternoon we harvested the La Crescent and Pamela plums and the Yellow Jay and Chance apples. All of a sudden we’re picking something everyday.

August 23, 2026

We picked the Purple Heart plums today. They are purple-skinned with deep purple flesh and are of the highest quality fresh eating. They are excellent. Unlike the somewhat larger, rounder Black Ice, nothing is known about their pedigree or even their correct identity. The story goes that a fellow introduced the plum to the famous fruit breeder, Elwin Meader. Elwin grew the plum out and, once it fruited, realized that he had been given a winner. Unfortunately, he was never able to track down the fellow who gave it to him. That person disappeared into the fog of orchard obscurity. But the plum itself has lived on to become famous among connoisseurs. Was it a seedling? Was it another cultivar? It was Elwin who named it, and the name is fitting. It definitely has a purple heart. Thanks to whoever it was!

We also did some watering today of some of the companions in the orchard. It’s been really dry. We would be happy with a few days of rain.

August 22, 2026

Quince (of Colorado)

Today Skylar collected two famous, old Maine apples: Cole’s Quince and Dudley Winter. Cole’s Quince (not a quince) originated in Maine’s most southern county (York) and Dudley Winter originated in Maine’s northernmost county, (Aroostook). The Cole’s are dropping and ready to pick. The Dudley’s are beginning to drop so she collected the drops and left the rest on the tree for later. Both are superior cooking apples.

Cole’s Quince is not to be confused with another apple called simply “Quince.” That apple predate’s the Maine apple which is why Mainers included the word “Cole’s” in theirs. Jude Schuenmeyer of Montezuma County, CO thinks that he and his partner, Addie, have found the original Quince apple. Although yet to be proven, it looks correct to me.

August 21, 2026

Tansy, August 21, 2026

I needed time to prepare for apple ID season so, even though it was not raining today, I pretended it was too wet to work outdoors and spent the morning working on a new and improved apple ID form. It should be ready for the flood of ID requests when they threaten to drown me in a few weeks. Don’t hesitate to send in your apple mysteries. I will be ready!

But the weather was too nice to sit inside all day so the afternoon was spent doing more scything, weeding and painting trunks. August is a month to be outdoors. .

August 20, 2026

The tag

I scythed and weeded and painted neem on row one at Finley. That’s about 40 trees. It’s the row with our worst poison ivy —aptly named Toxicodendron radicans in the Latin — so I took one for the team. I don’t seem to get poison ivy. I will say that I don’t push it. As the Coasters famously sang, “You can look but better not touch!”

Skylar scoured the orchard looking for trees with missing vinyl labels or labels that have finally faded and need a refresher with #2 pencil. Documentation is key to a whole lot of what we do.

August 19, 2026

Picked the wonderfully-flavored, super-juicy, red-fleshed Black Ice plums today. Black Ice is a complex hybrid. Not being sure of its pollination requirements, we have ours growing next to Purple Heart and close to two Prunus nigra trees (Canadian plum) and two Prunus ussuriensis trees. So there’s a lot of different pollen around. Ours has done really well. It’s productive, and the plums are excellent fresh off the tree. It’s one defect is that it’s very susceptible to Brown Rot. Vigilant thinning and spraying fungicides would likely help. (We sometimes do a little of both but sometimes neither.)    

Also picked the Duchess apples, one of my all-time favorites. We’ll cook them into sauce, pies and crisps over the next few weeks since it is definitely not a keeper. Nor is Duchess an apple for warmer climes, but it’s wonderful here in central Maine and further north.  

Butterfly Weed, August 19, 2026

The Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is now in bloom. It’s in the same genus as the common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), but it has orange flowers. I’ve been trying to get it established on the farm for years, and I finally have one plant blooming in the orchard. Hooray! Being a big fan of the color combination orange and green, you can see why I love this plant. Plus it has all the same great qualities of the syriacas.       

August 18, 2026

It’s peach-pickin’ time in Palermo. Today we picked the Reliance, most of the Lars Anderson and a few of the Red Haven. The Reliance are close to perfect. The Lars are starting to ripen, and the Red Haven will be ready by the end of the week. Despite several nights of -20F or colder last winter, we have a very decent crop this year. However, the white-fleshed Belle of Georgia did not fruit. The tree still looks good—only a bit of die-back—but no fruit.

Reliance, August 18, 2026

With apologies to Merle Haggard:
It’s peach-picking time in Palermo
Apple-picking time soon to be
Tomato-picking time in the garden
But please don’t pick on me!

August 17, 2026

This time of year it’s mostly T-shirts, but yesterday we brought in a load of mulch hay so it was back to gloves and long sleeves. I’ve dabbled in all sorts of long-sleeve shirts over the years. Most are too heavy for summer farm work. Long ago I discovered the “seconds” at the Hathaway Shirt factory in Waterville. For 2 dollars a piece (or maybe it was 50 cents) I could pickup half a dozen beautiful white light-weight cotton shirts. A great deal and the feel was perfect. And the look!

Repurposed!

But then Hathaway closed down and I was forced to comb the racks at goodwill looking for shirts that were made of cotton. Eventually I inherited a bunch of old shirts from my Dad. They worked great. Those shirts spent their final years in the orchard on me. Now whaty remains of them can be found in our rag box. Earlier this summer I scored big-time when our friend Bill unloaded a pile of his dress shirts on me. Blues and whites. He hadn’t worn them since he retired. They even had those little strips of paper on them indicating they were fresh from the cleaner.

Meanwhile, more weeding and scything and painting trunks in the orchards. The beat goes on. We’re now eating corn, tomatoes and peaches. What could be better?