Today in the orchard
The Garden Royal tree, then and now, photo taken September 8, 2025, original photo from 1985
(Report by Skylar.) August has ended and just like that, September has begun. I spent a chunk of the morning harvesting the Garden Royals. While the whole top of this tree is Garden Royal, it’s also grafted with Red St. Lawrence, Tolman Sweet, and Pomme Gris. Despite all sharing a root system, it’s clear that Garden Royal has a different agenda than the rest in terms of how to grow. The Garden Royal part of the tree is tall and upright, while the other varieties spread low and wide, leaving the tree looking slightly confused. Once upon a time this tree was all Yellow Transparent, slowly to be crowded out by the current four cultivars. It was one of the first trees Bunk planted on the farm some fifty years ago. How wonderful it is that I get to climb in its branches today.
Also on the docket was harvesting the Foxhill and September Ruby apples, as well as the Gracious plums. The Garden Royals were in beautiful shape: we hardly had any to cull. The Sidrunkollane Taliouns weren’t in quite as nice of shape, but we were still left with bushels of ‘seconds’ and ‘utility’ fruit.
In the evening I made two more sauces, one with Red China apples and the other with Sidrunkollane Talioun. Making single variety sauces has been a fun practice for me, and a great way to get a sense of a particular cultivar. The Red China sauce came out a vibrant pink and is sharp with perhaps something of a savory note in there. The Sidrunkollane sauce is a warm, pale yellow, acidic but more balanced with sweetness than the Red China, and to me has a soapy or perfumy fragrance to it. Either would be great additions to a mix, or something interesting to cook on their own in a pie, crisp, sauce, and so on
