Today in the orchard
Last day at the Fair. It was another big crowd. There wasn’t an apple tasting, but Dave Fulton led the second of two smaller cider-apples tastings. Dave is a UK-er living in Blue Hill who grows dozens of UK cider apple cultivars. He’s a wealth of cider knowledge blended with a wonderful sense of humor.
There were many highlights throughout the day. According to Lauren Cormier who works in the Maine Heritage Orchard and was selling fruit at the Fair, “a young kid came up holding the little crab from the display called Worth Every Penny and asked how much a whole bag would cost.” “Worth Every Penny” is one of the seedlings we grow at SCF. It was discovered by Angus Dieghan and is a little bigger than a large highbush blueberry…about the size of a one cent piece. The flesh is rather nasty. We pressed several dollars worth two weeks ago and wound up with about a half pint of cider. We don’t know how much a bag-full would cost but we definitely know it would be worth it.
A few minutes before we closed up shop for another year, we were treated to what may turn out to be the most important find of the year. Several apples appeared from a possible second Drap d’or de Bretagne tree. The fruit is—at first glance—phenotypically exactly like the Verona tree. Apparently the tree is extremely old. We’ll check out fruit and tree this coming week. Thanks to everyone who came to visit us over the weekend. It was a great fair!