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.