October 3, 2025

Today in the orchard

Second night in a row of frost. Two nights ago it was 26F. Last night, 32F. Today we weeded the asparagus patch for the last time this year. It took several hours, but it looks great. All those weeds—as well as the stalks—will go into the compost piles in the next few days. We’ve  been amassing robust piles of weeds, stalks, canes, and vines, all of which will migrate into the heaps. It is compost season. 

Later in the afternoon I harvested the Wickson seedling fruit. Not having a name yet, I’ve been calling it “Wicksonson.” (I know it’s a pretty lame name. We’ll come up with a better name now that we have fruit.) Wickson itself is one of the best-known introductions of Albert Etter (1872-1950). Wickson fruit is small, red-skinned, high in acid, high in sugar, good for dessert and recognized as one of the few single-varietal cider apples that receive almost universal acclaim. (One of the few others is Kingston Black.)

“Wicksonson” is considerably larger in size than its namesake parent. The texture is somewhat soft, the flavor is a bit bizarre and less acidic than Wickson. The sauce is lip-smacking tangy and a cheerful pink color. We had about 20 apples this year. Searching for the name...

Apple Talk in Rockport - Tonight 5-6

Wednesday, October 15 from 5:00-6:00 John will be talking about and tasting apples at Tenderwild Farm, 33 Guerney St., Rockport. Come savor some old and new apple flavors as he recounts his adventures fruit exploring around the state. Free and open to all. Heritage apples and John’s book, Apples and the Art of Detection will be for sale.

History of Apples in Palermo, ME - October 7th, 6:30

Join John Tuesday night, October 7th at 6:30 PM as he takes us on a tour of the apples grown and growing in his hometown of Palermo, ME. This is where he began his apple journey as he knocked on the doors of local farms to ask if he could scoop up the apples that were littering the ground under the old orchards. As he foraged for apples, the old timers who no longer took much interest in harvesting the apples, came out to join him, tell him the names of the varieties he was picking and enchant him with stories of apples they had planted, picked, pickled and pressed. John will share these stories and many of his own adventures over the past 45 years of fruit exploring in Palermo. Free and open to everyone. Apple treats at 5:30. Talk at 6:30. Worthing House, 54 North Palermo Rd., Branch Mills, Palermo. Sponsored by the Palermo Historical Society.

October 2, 2025

Today in the orchard

I remind myself every fall to minimize the days I’m off the farm. Ideally it would be none. But fall is the time to explore the world of apples beyond the farm. It’s the time to see other people’s trees. It’s the time to attempt to solve some of those apple mysteries that might just need one more visit to put it all together. It’s the time to spread the gospel of apples. Who can do it all? Luckily the answer is easy: no one. 

It was a clear blue day and, instead of working on the farm, I went “Downeast” and visited apple trees. I was joined by Todd Little Siebold and Sean Turley. Todd planned the trip, and we had multiple locations to visit. He knew where we needed to go. It was a marathon but a good one. Our mission was to track down three old cultivars that were grown in Hancock County: Garden Sweet, Martha Stripe and Marlboro. it was pitch dark when I opened the door to the cooler back at Super Chilly Farm and slid in three bushel boxes filled with bags of apples. Somewhere in those boxes maybe we’ll find all three of those illusive apples. And a whole lot more.  

October 1, 2025

Today in the orchard

Our big activity today was collecting leaves from fifteen apple trees for DNA samples. We pinch off two or three small leaves of each specimen and stuff them in special tubes half-filled with desiccant. Each tube is carefully labeled with a name and a number. We send them off to the Washington State University where they are “profiled” and compared with a huge international data reference set. Our goal is to learn names of cultivars and the names of their ancestors. It's one of the most valuable tools we have as we work with others around the world to assemble an apple family tree. We’ll tell you what we learn from this batch in about six months.

At noon we tasted two Frostbite red-fleshed seedlings that fruited for the first time: “Radar Love” and “Mo.” We’ve been waiting for this day for twelve years. Cammy, Skylar and I all agree that both have real potential as dessert fruit.

More apples are beginning to drop, and we picked the Kenrick Sweet and the Kilham Hill. Both are rare and will be DNA profiled and phenotyped. We checked out the wild trees down Finley Lane for potential cider fruit (we found two good candidates) and harvested the Strike Anywhere peppers (the small, prolific hot pepper we’ve been developing over the past 30 years). Tonight frost is anticipated. Time to get the tender stuff under cover. It was dark by the time we hung the last pepper plants from the rafters and called it a day.

September 30, 2025

Today in the orchard

The Asters are now in bloom in the orchard. The bees love them, and so do we. Although I can hardly call myself an Aster-expert, I think we may have two of the hundred or so native species: New England Asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) and New York Aster  (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii). I’m not entirely sure which is which. 

The deep purple Asters in the orchard are likely a named selection of New England Aster. I planted a couple plants a few years ago, and now they are migrating across the orchard with new purple-flowering clumps appearing every year. The bees are happy to have the Asters for their late honey production, and the Asters are happy to have the bees. Aster flowers require cross-pollination to produce viable seed, and it’s the bees that make that happen.

September 29, 2025

Today in the orchard

I spent several hours staring at apples at the dining room table. Although the weather is begging me to be outdoors, the bags of apples are building up and they’re threatening to bury me. Besides that I’m finding some really interesting apples, and I need to spend time observing, photographing and describing them.  (And tasting them!)

Today’s featured apple is one that was given to me not this year but, incredibly enough, a year ago. It came from Jean Balamuth in Alstead NH. As I was going through the boxes in the basement, I found it. It has been in cold storage for eleven and a half months and still looks great!

From an email dated November, 2024:

“ I believe all of mine are seedling trees… Here is the first tree I'd like help with. The apples are late, small and deep red. I've labeled it "Late Red". Three trunks in there. The biggest measures 34" around. I would guess 20 ft tall.”

I was in touch with Jean today. She'll send me scionwood this winter, and we'll trial it in our research orchard. She has now named it, "Francis Sutherland." 

September 28, 2025

Today in the orchard

Today we picked the Frostbite trees (aka MN 447). I admit it was early.  In a normal year we’d pick them a couple of weeks later. But in 2025 nearly every cultivar has been early. As a result, the flavors have been less than optimal. But when the seeds are dark brown and half the crop is on the ground, we pick. The fruit does look good. Frostbite often cracks around the cavity (stem end). This year there’s hardly any cracking at all. Maybe that’s a result of the drought. With less water being sucked up by the roots, the fruit is smaller but the skin stays more intact.  The less than optimal flavor is a bit of a mystery. With less water, you’d think the flavors might be more pronounced. But with the fruit dropping early, it could be that the flavor just doesn’t have time to develop. Still, “447” remains one of our favorite apples.

There’s a long story behind Frostbite. It was selected nearly 100 years ago and then spent decades languishing in the forgotten-apples repository at the University of Minnesota. No one seemed to know what to do with it. The flavor was dubbed too weird. Meanwhile it was used as one of the parents of Keepsake and Sweet Sixteen, two excellent apples. That subsequently made it a grandparent of Honeycrisp. The University sent us scionwood about 20 years ago, and we now have 8 trees. We love it. Although the tree-growth vigor is subpar, pollination and production is good even when the weather during bloom is poor as it was this past May. The fresh dessert quality is unusual but—we think—delicious and, on top of all that, 447 seedlings almost always have superior fruit. Several of our 447 seedlings have proved to be wonderful apples themselves. This is a great apple.

September 27, 2025

Today in the orchard

Today I found a really bizarre creature in the orchard, if it was a creature. Whatever it was, it looked like a horrible disease or maybe something that had descended upon us from outer space. It occurred to me that it might be a huge colony of woolly apple aphids (Eriosoma lanigerum). Woolly apple aphids look like fluffy cotton, and they surround the thin stems or trunks of apple trees. Over the years I’ve found them on our trees—in particular the young nursery trees—but never like this massive bunch which was about a foot long. I still remember the first time I ever encountered them (decades ago). I panicked and tore out several nursery trees and burned them, only to find out from an experienced orchard friend that they were nothing to worry about them. (Haste makes waste?) They’re not monsters, just weird. I hadn’t noticed any in the nursery or orchard in as long as I can remember. 

This colony of woolly aphids (if that’s what they are) was on the orchard edge in an Alder tree. (Alnus incana) . That suggests that it likely is Woolly Alder Aphid (Prociphilus tessellatus), which is very closely related to the apple version. (family Aphididae, subfamily Eriosomatinae) Wow. Very impressive. They are just another crazy inhabitant of the amazing plant world that feeds us, clothes us, houses us and propels us. Welcome to our orchard!

September 26, 2025

Today in the orchard

The second ID I worked on yesterday was one from Sandy River Orchard in Mercer, ME. As I recall, this was an apple that Francis Fenton told me he found on an old tree in nearby Norridgewock and grafted into his orchard. That was in the days when Francis was actively fruit exploring, years before he and I met and spent many hundreds of hours together. Francis died at age 99 in 2015. Unfortunately he never took me to the source tree, nor do I have any idea where it might be. Happily we have a large branch of the apple here on the farm, and I picked them all a day or two ago. For now I’m calling it “Fenton’s Ribbed Yellow.” 

“Fenton’s Ribbed Yellow” somewhat resembles Calville Blanc d’Hiver, (and for awhile I thought maybe it was Calville), but has a DNA profile (AMHO 103) showing it to be “unique far from all.” Like Calville the apple is yellow and distinctly ribbed. From “above” it is pentagonal. The cavity and basin are generally medium in size though they are sometimes so shallow as to be almost non-existent. Occasionally the cavity is also lipped. This is one unusual and cool looking apple. It is ripe now (mid-late September). The closest match I’ve find so far is to an apple named Holly, submitted to the USDA watercolor program in 1904 from Bridgeton, ME. (Bridgeton and Mercer are about 70 miles apart.) It also may turn out to be one of those many hyper-local selections that may forever remain unidentified.

September 25, 2025

Today in the orchard

Don’t we love the rain when it only shows up once or twice a month? The last rain was three weeks ago. This time it rained for nearly 20 hours, and we got slightly over 2”. Fantastic. It was a good day to do apple ID’s.

I pulled out a bag of apples sent to us by Amy Gramour, a friend and fruit explorer from Houlton in Maine’s northernmost County. Amy has been on the search for the Houlton apple, “Bloom,” for some time and was hoping this one might be it. These apples come from a huge old tree in Houlton. Bloom originated in Houlton or in nearby Woodstock, New Brunswick. Back then the borders were porous, and people and plants flowed back and forth with complete freedom. (The good old days.) Bussey lists three cultivars named Bloom and two of them—numbers 1 and 3—would be the apple in question. Had he been aware that Houlton and Woodstock were only 15 miles apart, he might have concluded that the two were one and the same. The historical record matches well enough. Amy’s apple could be it.

Next, the phenotype. I read the description in Bussey and examined Amy’s apples as I did so. Unfortunately the phenotypic description—incomplete as it is—did not match the apple. Although historic descriptions are often incomplete and writers differ on how they define and describe characteristics, in this case, the apple can not be Bloom. 

So what could it be? The prominently red-striped fruit has “Russian” written all over it. Think Duchess, Charlamoff and even Gravenstein. Amy’s apple could be Haas, an apple with Russian roots that matches the description and was trialed in Houlton during the late 19th century when many hardy apples with Russian pedigree made their way to the cold of northern Maine. 

Next steps?  How about a DNA profile?  Tomorrow: my umpteenth attempt at Francis Fenton’s ribbed yellow apple.

September 24, 2025

Today in the orchard

Skylar and I spent a bunch of time editing our list of apple mysteries to solve this fall. We have some interesting adventures ahead. Later we walked the orchards to inventory the ripe fruit. We’re currently in a late September ripening lull, but we’ll be picking again before long. We need to plant a few more late September cultivars. 

We did pick the Brandywine, one of the most bitter and unpleasant-tasting fruit we grow. A true spitter. Of course, that makes it one of my absolute favorites. Brandywine was originally selected as an ornamental. The double flowers (multi-petaled) are incredibly beautiful and fragrant. The one-inch fruit has largely diminished (or ruined) its popularity with ornamental growers. For cidermakers, however, it’s got everything: flowers, fragrance and nasty bitter fruit.    

September 23, 2025

Today in the orchard

Today I visited the apple tree in Belfast that might be a second Drap d’or de Bretagne in Maine. This is the apple that was brought to the Hayloft tent just before the end of the Fair this past Sunday. Although the tree is only a couple hundred feet from Rte 1 and I’ve probably driven by it five hundred times, I’d never seen the fruit. The tree is exceedingly old, and the fruit phenotypically resembles the Drap d’or de Bretagne we found on Verona Island only fifteen miles from Belfast up the coast and over the water. I took leaves to DNA profile and will phenotype the fruit, comparing it to the Verona Island discovery.

PS: For all you jazz fans, today is the 99th birthday of John Coltrane.  A year from now we'll have a big celebration of jazz and apples and cider. What a "combo!" 

September 21, 2025

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!  

September 20, 2025

Today in the orchard

Second day of the Fair. There was a huge crowd, and the Hayloft “Apple Tent” was a busy place all day. Many fairgoers brought apples for us to identify. It’s amazing how many varieties there are out there that we just don’t know. Darn! Today was the second tasting of (mostly) Maine apples led by myself and Sean Turley.  The tasting attracted a large, enthusiastic crowd. As expected, Canadian Strawberry was a big favorite again today although the surprise winner was the largely unknown, bright-red-fleshed Winekist. 

Winekist was introduced in the 1949 Carl A. Hansen Nursery Co. catalog from Brookings, SD. Here is the description from page 20 of the catalog, reprinted in full:

 “A Carl A. Hansen Introduction First Time Offered. Clear red flesh from skin to core. Beautiful to look at and most delightful to eat. It has a sprightly sweet, most distinctive flavor. Makes the most beautiful looking and delicious tasting sauce, jam and jelly, the color of Port Wine. It is hardy far north into Canada. It produces big crops on very young trees. The fruit gets up to 3 inches in diameter, with an outside coloring of clear, dark red, sometimes overstriped with darker red.

VERY ORNAMENTAL

Because of the large red, fragrant flowers in spring, this new apple makes an outstanding ornamental tree for planting on your lawn or in your garden. In an orchard its striking red flowers are a sight to behold as they stand out amongst all the other trees. The tree is of a semi-dwarf type, and does not require as much space as most apples. The branches are strong forked and will bear well the large heavy crops of fruit.

The demand for trees of red fleshed apples is going to be tremendous and once they are sufficiently planted for the fruit to be sold on the market, it’s hard to say how enormous the demand will be. You can be sure that for many years the fruit will command premium prices. Those who get started with these new fruits now will reap rewards for years to come.”

September 19, 2025

Today in the orchard

Today was the first day of MOFGA’s annual Common Ground Country Fair (aka THE Fair). It’s three days of agricultural displays, workshops, talks, demonstrations, speakers, crafts, organic food and, of course, apples. A bunch of us gather at the “Hayloft Tent” where we display a couple hundred apples and pears grown in Maine and talk to fairgoers about their apples. We attempt to identify their mysteries and geek out over the amazing diversity of fruit growing throughout the state. This year, we also sold fruit grown in the Maine Heritage Orchard. That was a first and a big hit.  

Among the highlights of the Fair (at least for apple lovers) are the apple tastings on Friday and Saturday afternoon. We cut up twelve varieties and pass them out to the crowd. Then everyone votes for their favorites. Although it’s entirely dependent on what’s ripe at the moment, it does give everyone a glimpse into some of the best dessert apples growing in Maine. It’s also a wild and fun event. Today we had a tie for first place: Canadian Strawberry and Garden Royal. In second was the modern European cultivar, Ingrid Marie. Rounding it off in third was St. Edmond’s Russet.     

September 18, 2025

Today in the orchard

Spent time puttering in the orchard we call the BRC. It’s the orchard where we allow all the various companion species to grow more or less unchecked.  It’s the location of some of our most coveted cultivars (varieties). The orchard is relatively close to the house and surrounded by a good fence. The chicken house and the duck house are both in the BRC. That means we go into the orchard at least twice a day to let the birds out in the morning and in at night. It’s a great motivator to get us out observing what’s happening in the orchard every day.

Occasionally, however, one of us gets distracted and doesn’t get out to close the birds in til well after dark. That can be a bummer, or almost a bummer, like tonight. I was heading to the coop a little after dark when I heard unmistakable trouble in the hen house. I stepped it up and bolted down the path past the Ribston Pippin (no crop this year), Black Oxford (lots of fruit), 447 (good crop), Rolfe (4 apples), Yellow Bellflower (excellent keeper), and Cherryfield (aka Benton Red aka Collins aka Salome) and got to the gate just in time to see a sizable and rather rotund raccoon racing off into the darkness. There were a lot of detached tail feathers lying around but no further damage. Looks like I arrived just in time!  Thankful, I clucked it all the way back to the house under the emerging stars humming NRBQ’s tune “Trouble in the Henhouse. (Check it out on Tapdancing Bats.)  Tomorrow I'll be on time.

September 13, 2025

Today in the orchard

Today I woke up on the shores of Great Pond in Belgrade, ME. It’s the place I call the center of the Universe. (Move over, Sun.) It’s also the location of the Annual Belgrade Pie Taste-off, an event where we serve three specially curated, single-variety apple pies to a large group of friends who sample the entries and then vote on their favorites. It’s a wild and fun evening. You eat a thin slice of one pie and you think it’s an apple pie. You eat two and you notice, “Hey, these are different.” You eat three and a favorite inevitably emerges. All apples have different flavors and textures. Some won’t cook in an hour, the time it takes to bake the perfect crust. Others turn into soup (think Macs). Some have intense flavors while others lose their flavors. Some are great pie apples while others should never see an oven. Every variety is—of course—unique. 

I start early in the day making the three crusts right after breakfast. I leave them to chill for a few hours and then assemble the pies later in the afternoon. This year's three apples were Red China, Charlamoff and Somerset of Maine. Charlamoff and Somerset are both beautiful fruit on the table. The brightly-colored red-fleshed “Red China” was the most tart of the three apples before baking. It retained that tartness, but its flavors loved the oven. When the votes were tabulated, it was the resounding winner. Perhaps it was the intense red-color, or maybe it was the tart flavor. Whatever it was, the Belgrade taste-off crowd loved it. 

Red China is also becoming popular with sauce-makers. Look for it in your supermarket apple display sometime soon?

September 17, 2025

Today in the orchard

I returned home from fruit exploring in Aroostook County and jumped back into picking. This afternoon I picked Screen Shot, Milwaukee, Payson Estate, and Snow (aka Fameuse). 

Milwaukee is a large oblate cooking apple that may have been historically grown in Maine. I’m trying to sort that out. Payson Estate is an odd-looking apple—probably a seedling—large size fruit with nearly no basin. We thought it could be a good cooking apple so we whipped up a galette with some leftover dough and a bag of Payson Estate drops. The apples in the opening at the top stayed chewy and even a bit crispy while those down deep in the galette got soft and almost sauce-like. Pretty perfect. Could have used a bit more sweetner. The original source tree is in Falmouth, ME and is huge. Fameuse is one of the most famous northern hardy dessert and sauce apples. 

Screen Shot is one of my favorite seedling discoveries. It’s oddly-shaped and strangely-flavored. Just my type of apple. We could try to sell them, but I don’t think anyone would want them after a nibble or two (maybe one). The flesh is dense, spongy and juicy all at the same time, low in acid with some astringency and bitterness. It makes a very thick, tasty sauce. We need more apples like Screen Shot!  

September 16, 2025

Today in the orchard

Back on the home front Cammy picked Royal Jersey, Ivan and Blenheim Orange. The Royal Jerseys were mostly on the ground and should be pressed soon. Ivan is a small but exceptionally delicious fresh-eating fruit. It’s one of Niels Hansen’s best introductions. Blenheim is a large, famous, historic English dessert and cooking variety. 

Meanwhile I spent the day fruit exploring with Laura and Sean west of Presque Isle. Our goal was to taste as many seedlings as we could in a single ten-hour period. I think we won the Guinness Book of World Record by a few hundred. My guess is we may have tasted 1,000 between the three of us. We found multiple forests of hundreds upon hundreds of seedling trees of every imaginable size, shape, color and flavor. It was incredible, fantastic and exhausting. Apples ranging from the size of Blueberries to the size of softballs. By about 3 PM my poor mouth was so overwhelmed, I could barely tell what it was I was eating. The colors of the fruit were absolutely electric against the blue September sky. Everywhere we looked there were more apple trees. Tree after tree after tree. Utterly amazing.  Among the hundreds we found several that we should name and graft. We had flagging tape that we discreetly tied onto the backsides of the trunks. We’ll come back this winter to collect scionwood. It was a truly fantastic day.