August 26, 2025

Today in the orchard

Today Skylar built her first compost pile from scratch. This is a major achievement, a rite of passage and no easy feat. Her pile looks good so far, and I’m a real stickler when it comes to compost piles. (For more information on compost piles see the Orchard Reports on 6-16-24, 8-9-24 and 6-16-25.) We did more nursery weeding and watering as the drought trudges on. Meanwhile, the apples miraculously continue to ripen ,and we’re picking new varieties daily. Today it was Red China. 

The original Red China tree that was cut down to make a driveway.

I have always thought Red China was a seedling tree. I discovered it one spring growing by the side of Alder Park Road about ten miles from here in China, ME. I first noticed it’s spectacular dark pink flowers. As I suspected the flesh is red too (get it?). The skin is a beautiful orangey-red-pink. It’s not a dessert (fresh eating) apple although some people may like it that way. It does cook-up well into an outrageous, raspberry-colored sauce. We had Red China DNA profiled, and the results came back as the same as another named red-fleshed cultivar. (I’m skeptical.) I don’t think that they’re the same, but the original “Red China” is now gone so we’ll likely never know if it was a seedling or a grafted tree. Fortunately we have two trees grafted here on the farm. If you’re into red-fleshed apples, scour your roadsides during bloom, looking for red/pink-flowering apples. You will have found a red-fleshed seedling.    

August 25, 2025

Today in the orchard

Today we had rain much of the day. We could hear the trees gasping with a sign of relief. Admittedly it was a pitiful amount (about 2/10”), but when you’re in a drought as we are, two tenths is welcome. Just seeing droplets of water beading up on the leaves of apples was enough to make me feel like all might be well again on Earth.

Until this year we sold much of our fruit through our CSA. We let that go after 16 years. We will still sell some apples to Khris and Lizzie Hogg, the couple who have taken over the CSA, but we’ll also sell our apples to local farm stands, restaurants and bakeries. Today we packed Purple Heart plums, Black Ice plums and Trailman apples so we spent a chunk of the day in the barn grading them. When we’re cooking, saucing or pressing for us at home, we’re likely to use nearly all the fruit. We were more selective with the fruit that we provided to our CSA members, but they learned to be very tolerant of less than pristine fruit. When it goes to a farm stand or restaurant, however, it’s got to look nice. The grading process can be a bit brutal. Yes, we’d use this apple no problem, but would it sell? (Sadly, probably not.) So it goes into the discard bucket. Fortunately, we eat a lot of apples ourselves, and in a couple of weeks we’ll crank up the press and start making cider.  

August 23, 2025

Today in the orchard

(Report by Skylar.) Alyssa Gavlik was on the farm today. Our first task was to harvest all the apples on the Trailman in the BRC. We gathered up our equipment: apple crates and picking buckets, a five gallon bucket for the discards, and each of us our own apple ladder. We were ready. Our ladders are fantastic, but we soon needed more height, so Alyssa retrieved a taller ladder and a pole picker. Maybe next year we’ll build longer ladders. After the Trailman was the Black Ice and Purple Heart plums. We traded apple crates for shallow, plastic crates and our ladders for a tripod ladder.

In the afternoon it was time to stack firewood. We started in on the huge pile of wood that had been dumped in a heap by a neighbor in trade for our work in his orchard. It seemed as if only a moment had passed when I looked at our stack and it was four feet tall. It’s quite beautiful, but next time we’re going to step it up and meticulously create a design in the mosaic of cut wood.

August 22, 2025

Today in the orchard

This is one of the summer days I always await with bated breath. It’s the day the Trailman apples are ready to pick. (A quick dive into grammar: is it baited or bated? And what does it mean either way? Evidently it’s bated, and it means nervous or anxious which totally makes sense since a perfect Trailman is not an apple to miss…even by a day.) Trailman Harvest Day is usually August 20 by my reckoning, but of course that depends on an assortment of factors. Our friends who live an hour south of us in Portland were already picking their Trailmans on August 15. So this year we’re a week plus behind Portland. 

After much deliberation we decided that today was the day. It was Skylar’s first time donning a picking-bucket so she warmed up with the Koidu Reinettes and the Centennial Crabs. Then, joined by Cammy, we picked the Trailman. The apples are small—a flaw in the world of commercial apples—but the flesh is crystalline crisp and the flavor is AAA. Trailman is a really good apple. It took a few hours to pick, but it’s well worth the effort. We turned on the cooler yesterday so the Trailmans were happily stored at 34F within a hour of being picked. Let the season begin!

August 21, 2025

Today in the orchard

Five Koidu Reinettes harvested from the same tree on the same day, picture taken August 23, 2025

(Report by Skylar.) Apple picking season is just starting, but peach season is in full swing. Both the Reliance and Lars Andersons are dropping,and the yellow jackets are just loving it. So we collected all the ripe fruit we could find. Along with those Cammy had already harvested, we had a lot of peaches on our hands. It’s moments like these that make my mind start to spin with all the possibilities. We could make wines, kombuchas, krauts, hot sauces, jams, and on and on. But sometimes the best thing is to keep it simple. 

So we boiled a pot of water and filled a large bowl with cold water. We placed the peaches into the boiling water for one minute only, then placed them in the cold water. Their skins slipped right off. We cut them in half, pitted them, and laid them out in a single layer on sheet pans to go into the freezer. Once they freeze solid, the peaches can be stored and used all winter long.

August 20, 2025

Today in the orchard

Although I could spend a few life times growing, eating and studying the apples here on the farm, there are many others of note that aren’t that far away. So today Skylar and I visited a few old summer-ripening apple trees in the area. One is in north Palermo and might be an old cultivar called American Summer Pearmain.  The second, which is near the center of town, we know to be Chenango Strawberry. 

From a pomological perspective it was the perfect day to visit both trees, and none too soon. Nearly all the apples were on the ground. We collected enough decent specimens of the possible American Summer Pearmain to do a new phenotypic analysis. That tree was supposedly DNA profiled a few years ago. The results confirmed my phenotype. But a closer look at the results caused me to suspect that the specimens might have been mixed up. The leaves sent in might have been from the USDA accession of ASM instead. I’ll sort that out. 

The second site featured a quintessential Chenango Strawberry, that conic, rosy-blushed and striped apple that is so distinctive it’s hard to mis-ID. However, there’s a second apple on half the tree. The DNA profile on that yellow, tart, summer apple came back as unknown. It occurred to me as we looked at the fruit today that it might be the rootstock of the Chenango. I’ll phenotype that one too in the next few days. The yard also had several younger trees including a Duchess and a Wolf River as well as an exceedingly old russet which should be DNA profiled and phenotyped. Don’t know how I’s missed that tree in past visits. 

Both old farms have been purchased in recent years by young families, and I felt a bit like the Pied Piper as I checked out the trees. In each spot I was followed by a small entourage of curious kids who seem to hang on my every word. Spending time with them made me feel that—despite the endless challenges of the twenty-first century—the best of life will continue. They all seemed to understand the wonders of the outdoors, the universe and—most importantly—the apple trees.  

APPLE JUBILEE - SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 10 AM - 6 PM

Come join us at the Apple Jubilee on September 6, 2025, 10 AM-6 PM

Free and Open to All

Langlais Art Preserve 
576 River Road
Cushing, Maine 04563

Featuring: "apple magic", apple art, cider pressing, cider tasting and a talk by John at about 1:30: "Historic Apples of Midcoast Maine"

John will begin his program in the apple orchard, discussing the trees, fruits, and other aspects of the orchard and local ecology. Following the discussion, John will lead participants to the barn to deliver his lecture

August 18, 2025

Today in the orchard

It was 41F at 6:00 AM this morning. It actually rained a little bit last night, though less than a quarter of an inch. We’ll take it. I made applesauce again with more Dudley drops. Which brings up the subject of drops. What’s that all about?

Don’t eat the drops in this field. (Photo by Eliza Greenman)

Apples drop for a number of reasons. Most apples drop because they are ripe. This makes great sense. The tree grows fruit, the purpose of which is to be a container for the seed inside. The seed is produced to continue the species. The seed and fruit ripen simultaneously.  The fruit then drops in hopes for a deer, cow or squirrel to come along and eat the fruit and fertilize the seed. 

Quite a few apples are dropping now.  Mostly, the apples are dropping because they are ripe. Some are dropping fruit because they have a lot of apples on the tree and they don’t need them all; there’s plenty of seed in the fruit still on the tree. Others are dropping because we’re having a drought here in central Maine. Shedding a percentage of the crop saves resources for the remaining fruit.  Brown seeds indicate the fruit is ripe; if the seeds are white, they’re not ripe yet.

Are the drops safe to eat? We eat drops right off the ground and also use them in cooking because we have no livestock in our orchards. I like to use them for sauce because it’s a great way to use the apples we can’t sell. We’ve never gotten sick using drops. The USDA became very freaked out about drops some years ago because of ecoli contamination. Here’s a rule of thumb about drops: if your apple lands in a pile of poop, feed it to a cow.

August 19, 2025

Today in the orchard

(Report by Skylar.) I spent much of the morning down at the Finley Lane Nursery walking around to check for apples that are ripe or close to it and picking up the drops that I found. I also took the time to gawk at the beauty around me. So much is alive right now, and it’s all growing fast. The watermelons are too large for me to grab with one hand—though out of fear of snapping their stems I don’t pick them up — and the pumpkins are substantially larger than that. The next crop of plums have turned a pearlescent pink. We’re surrounded by a diversity of color, shape, texture, and size. 

A handful of Centennial Crab drops in the Finley Lane Nursery, August 19, 2025.

Taste is another giant category of diversity that exists in the apple kingdom, and one I am just at the cusp of getting to know. The little details that make every variety unique from every other - how they change as they ripen, as they’re stored, fermented, cooked, and so on. How they can be measured using well equipped taste buds and scientific efforts. But why should we bother breaking down the chemistry of apple taste and aroma? Why should we bother training our tastebuds to notice the nuances from bite to bite and sip to sip? I asked John this question. He answered in an analogy: the average person doesn’t know much about the structure and components that make music excellent, and they don’t need to in order to enjoy it. However, just about anyone can tell when that composer does not fully understand the makeup of the music. Surely, the cider maker, chef, or breeder benefits from a deeper understanding of apple taste and aroma. Training my brain and my palate to discern what I taste in an apple prompts me to slow down, to notice, and to appreciate. I could go around chomping every apple in sight and for the most part I would enjoy it, but I really start to fall in love with the apples when I get to taste them as the unique fruit that they are. 

August 17, 2025

Today in the orchard

Summer Sweet ready for the fire, August 17, 2025

This morning was cool enough to light up the cookstove for the second day in a row and cook up a pot of Summer Sweet (aka King’s Sweet and Orange Sweet.) This is the small roundish-conic, opaque-orangey-yellow apple that originated in Sidney, ME and was sometimes confused with the very old Plymouth, MA apple, Hightop Sweet. They are different apples. All historic cultivars with the word “Sweet” in the name are apples with low acidity.  Because of this, they take forever to cook.  

Summer Sweet found its popularity as an August dessert fruit. Without the tartness we are so used to tasting in apples, its flavor is distinctive. They are best-flavored and textured when they are still slightly green (unripe). The Summer Sweet sauce is moderately thick, and that distinctive flavor really comes through. The acidic Dudley sauce took about four minutes to cook down yesterday. The Summer Sweet sauce took about an hour and a half. That’s the low acidity.

I continued cutting firewood and cleaning up compost piles. Late in the day we picked all the Tecumseh plums still on the large tree up at Finley Lane. They are so good!   

August 16, 2025

Today in the orchard

This morning it was 49F at 6 AM. For a few hours, fall was in the air. I lit the fire in the cookstove and made a pot of Dudley Winter applesauce. With its Russian pedigree (it’s a Duchess seedling), it cooked up quickly into a frothy, tart sauce.  

Dudley Winter was discovered, selected and introduced by the Dudley family in Aroostook County, ME 150 years ago. Although it’s been DNA profiled, the pollen parent is not yet known. “Dudley” was originally called North Star but was—at least officially—re-named to distinguish it from another North Star apple in Iowa. (It’s still often called North Star in northern Maine.) The new name itself is a bit of misnomer in central and southern Maine where it ripens in August and September—hardly a winter apple. For folks in Aroostook it keeps far better though it still probably shouldn’t be called “Winter.”

Lars Anderson, August 16, 2025

In the afternoon Cammy and I picked blueberries and blackberries. Blueberry season is winding down. The drought has done a number to the blackberries. They are mostly dry and small or just gone. On the brighter side, we’re now collecting Lars Anderson peaches off the ground every day. The fruit quality is excellent this year.  In a day or two we’ll pick the rest of the fruit from the tree. It’s a pleasant surprise to be having such a good crop of peaches this summer—especially on the Lars Anderson tree after multiple nights of —20 F last winter.   

August 15, 2025

Today in the orchard

Apples and the Art of Detection by Abbott Meader, age 90 today

Today the mountains, the valleys, the rivers, the streams and the apple trees all celebrated Abbott Meader’s 90th birthday. Abbott is one of our favorite artists. He was my college art teacher long ago. Although his subject matter is wide and varied, it often depicts things outdoors. Many of his paintings grace our walls. I never get tired of seeing them day after day. In 2004 Abbott painted the Fedco Trees cover (two dancing trees). In 2019 he painted the cover of Apples and the Art of Detection.

There’s something about Abbott’s artwork that has all the joy, freedom, swing and sense of humor that I find in Sun Ra, the Dalai Lama and my favorite old hollow, contorted, smiling apple tree. 

This evening we were delighted to attend Abbott’s ninetieth birthday celebration. Many of his friends and family were in attendance. Four of his short experimental films were shown, and the venue was wrapped in his artwork. Although we all know that the best thing anyone can be is an orchardist, being an artist isn’t (too) far behind. Happy birthday Abbott!

August 12, 2025

Today in the orchard

Red Delicious destined for the stove, c 1975.

Another hot, dry one in central Maine, the first day of summer firewood season. I cut the trees in the wintertime, a couple of hours at a time. All our firewood this year is coming from along the edges of the orchards and from the side of Finley Lane, the old road that leads to our largest orchard and two very old abandoned homesteads beyond. Keeping the edges trimmed back maximizes the light in the orchard and minimizes competition with the apple trees. It’s also a great form of winter exercise followed by a good way to spend a few days in August. Laura came over and helped me bring in several truck-loads of wood. Within the next couple of weeks we’ll cut it up to stove-length, and then in another month or two we’ll bring it into the basement, where it will await its ultimate end. Eventually we’ll spread the ashes back in the orchards where they will help feed a future apple crop. It is a circle, isn’t it?

Today’s photo is from Steve and Marilyn Meyerhans of the Apple Farm in Fairfield. When they purchased Wentworth’s Orchard about 50 years ago, one of their first projects was cutting down most of the Red Delicious trees. (Need I say more?) 

August 11, 2025

Today in the orchard

Butterflyweed at Finley Lane, August 11, 2025

This was a day to stay indoors, a good place to be when the temperatures are in the mid-90’s. It was still 91 F when I went outside to do some work at 4 PM. From 4-8 PM the conditions were quite nice for catching up on building compost piles and inventorying the apple crop. Turns out we have a lot of fruit out there. This could be an exciting year if we can get a bit of rain. It is dry, and we need it. I also gave a tour for a photographer from Downeast Magazine. Stay tuned for the October issue. 

For years I’ve been trying to establish Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa), a close relative of the pale-pink-flowering common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). Happily we have lots of the Common Milkweed in the orchards, but Butterflyweed has brilliant orange flowers, and I do love orange. I’ve made several unsuccessful attempts to get it started … until now. Today I noticed the orange flowers. Hooray! 

August 8, 2025

Today in the orchard

Tetofsky, August 6, 2025

On the morning of August 6th I picked the Tetofsky (also spelled Tetofski) apples. Some had dropped so I knew it was time. We have one branch that was grafted from scionwood obtained many years ago from Nick Botner. Although we have not done a DNA profile, our apple matches the description in Bussey (Illustrated History of Apples in the US and Canada) so it is probably correct. The fruit is small-medium, roundish-oblate, light yellow with  pastel pink stripes. The cavity is obtuse, the basin shallow and the calyx tube is long and funnel-shaped. The texture is medium-soft. The flavor is mild but tart. The flesh oxidizes rapidly. 

Tetofsky is one of the four Russian apples imported via the London Horticultural Society in 1835. The other three—Alexander, Duchess of Oldenburg and Red Astrachan—became famous in all cold districts of the US and southern Canada. Tetofsky never gained the same fame as the others, but it is one of the parents of at least four hardy, early-twentieth century Canadian cultivars including Atlas, Melba and Petrel (from the Central Experimental Farm in Ontario) and Mantet (from Ag Canada in Morden, Manitoba). It is also a grandparent of the Minnesota apple, State Fair.

Two days after picking we made apple sauce with about half the fruit. The sauce cooked up in about three minutes.  (Maybe two) The skins did not break down enough to lose their form, but they did become soft and chewed up easily. This is a very good apple for early season sauce.     

August 4, 2025

Today in the orchard

First Black Berries, August 4, 2025

Raspberry season is winding down, and blackberry season is about to ramp up. The blackberries love it here on the farm, especially out in our wild, Jurassic “BRC” orchard where we allow them to (mostly) do their thing. We do cut them back though you might not know if you were out there today. These are the native, unselected canes. All the named cultivars we’ve tried over the years have flopped here at “Super Chilly.” They died to the ground every winter and—if they came back at all—come back as creepy-crawly, thorny, unproductive vines. The native blackberries are vigorous and incredibly productive. The fruit is not large so picking takes more time, but they are worth the effort. They’re delicious fresh, and they freeze well. We’ll be picking a lot of berries the next few weeks.   

August 3, 2025

Today in the orchard

Although the vast majority of our trees are on full-size, standard rootstocks, we have about thirty dwarfs on Bud9 and G11. Growing and observing them gives us a chance to assess the benefits and challenges of dwarf rootstocks in central Maine. Both rootstocks are productive, precocious, easy to spray and pick. They are also sensitive to drought, require staking and should be kept weed-free. They are more like shrubs than trees. We prefer trees, but I’m glad we grow them. E very few weeks we spend the better part of a day weeding them. Today was one of those days.

In the afternoon we worked on the small cabin we’re building for employee housing. We haven’t settled on a name but have been calling it “Orchard House.” Seems appropriate. There’s at least one other Orchard House, the one in Concord, MA where Louisa May Alcott lived nearly 200 hundred years ago. It’s worth visiting if you’re ever down that way. Ours should be ready for use in the next few weeks. 

Summer Sweeting

I continued the inventory of fruit around the farm. I was joined by our grandchildren and two of their friends, all under the age of ten. The five of us tasted apples from a couple dozen trees, most of them still far from being ripe. That didn’t deter the tasting crew, however. The “greener” the better!One of the favorites was the small, sweet Maine apple introduced to me by Earland Goodhue. It was known in Sidney where it originated as King Sweeting, Summer Sweeting or Summer Sweet. We also found it in the Farmington area where it was called Orange Sweet. They’re not quite ripe, but we could already taste its unique and interesting low-acid flavor. It’s a wonderful summer apple.     

August 2, 2025

A Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe) visiting the Old Orchard. 

Today in the orchard

(Report by Skylar.) The morning was spent on the Orchard House at Finley Lane. We built an oddball railing for the loft. We left the branch stubs on the logs that make up the railing so that there are many hooks for holding hats, towels, keys, rubber bands, Christmas ornaments, the limbs of a pothos plant— the list may be endless. We also brought in a large White Pine slab that will become the kitchen countertop. Later in the day I cut and installed screens on the four windows that didn’t have them. 

I also spent time walking around the BRC and Old Orchard checking out what has changed in the past week while I was gone. Many of the apples and plums are just about ripe. The Yellow Transparents are starting to drop at the lightest touch, and the Duchess apples are dropping with no touch at all. They say these apples are best eaten just before they are ripe and that when fully ripe the Yellow Transparents can be so soft that they are better cooked into sauce. Some apples are best eaten early so they still have their structural integrity, others when perfectly ripe so they have the best balance of sugars, and still others after months in the root cellar to allow their flavors to reach their peak. Really though, who is to say what’s “best.” A wise John Bunker once told me, “If it tastes good, it is good.” If you like apples that make your lips pucker and your gums dry, I recommend picking your apples early. 

August 1, 2025

German Extra Hardy, August 1, 2025

Today in the orchard

August already? It’s time to harvest the garlic. Plant in the fall, harvest in the summer. We grow two varieties: Phillips, a rocambole-type and German Extra Hardy, a porcelain-type. They are both excellent. Although we grow the majority of our vegetable crops down near the house in the Big Garden, we grow a few crops that require lots of space—garlic, potatoes, and winter squash—up the road in the nursery in rotation with our young grafted trees. Hayes, Chance, Cammy and I loaded up the truck with harvest crates and a couple of digging forks and headed up to the nursery. The garlic crop looked great, and in a couple of hours with an amazing team-effort we had a truck-load.

In the afternoon we laid the plants out in one of the greenhouses to dry and cure. Later we’ll snip off the stems and store the crop in the basement. In October we’ll select some of the best heads, divide up the cloves and plant the crop for next year. 

We also dug several pounds of potatoes from in amongst the garlic plants. Evidently we did not harvest all the spuds last year (we never get them all), and they rewarded us with a scattering of potatoes this summer. We ate them for supper. They were delicious. 

July 28, 2025

Today in the orchard

A balm for the bees, July 28, 2025

The native Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa or Wild Bergamot) is in nearly full bloom. Although it’s spread here and there throughout much of the farm, it especially loves the Finley Lane orchard. We now have thousands of plants. The light-lavender-purple flowers are not the brilliant red of the famous selected cultivars like “Jacob Cline”, but they are every bit as beautiful. The plants themselves are also incredibly rugged, outcompeting Bedstraw (Galium aparine) which has become one of the predominant species in the orchard (as well as one of our least favorites.)  The word balm was co-opted from the French by the English in the Middle Ages. Of its multiple meanings, the one I like best is a “soothing restorative agency.” The orchard is certainly a balm for the soul and Monarda, a balm for the bees. The bloom season comes at a good time, coinciding with Queen Ann’s lace (Daucus carota). The Valerian and the Yarrow are now mostly gone by and the Goldenrods (Solidago) and Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicumare) are just getting geared up.