You are the best, Dave. Always there to share your knowledge. Thank you!

Windfalls U-Pick in my area are running $6.50 a bushel at a local orchard. We get them every year for making applesauce. Normally we get 15 quarts of sauce from a bushel.

Perhaps for perfect canned apple slices, buying seconds would work? Many orchards around my area sell seconds cheaper for cooking/canning. Poorer skin color or perhaps a blemish but they are fine as a cooked product. No need to buy perfect grade apples for cooking. Fresh eating would be a different matter.

Please do keep in mind that if you use windfalls you need to add lemon juice. Windfalls have a more alkaline pH, are borderline low-acid.

Dave

Thanks, everyone. The vendor I buy from at the flea market sold Honey Crisp seconds (1 peck) for $6 last year. I bought them for fresh eating and they were great. This year, their Honey Crisp seconds are $10 for the same bag. We had a lot of dry weather in Ohio this year, so maybe the apple crop wasn't very good. I was surprised at their price increase. Their first in their peck apples did not change in price-still $6. It would be nice to find an orchard to go directly to, just to buy seconds.

Don't know about Ohio but here it is a bit early for the best apples and apple prices. Local growers, much less the importers won't really kick into high gear until the end of this month here.

Dave

Apples are at their peak here in Michigan, and the growers say it'll be a record year, so if you aren't too far south in Ohio, take a nice little autumn drive....

I bought perfect MacIntosh for $3.50 a peck last week, they'll get cheaper. A bushel here is about $10-$12 depending on variety but I'm pretty far north in Michigan.

They also sell "juice apples" by the bushel, they are not drops, but they are seconds. $6 a bushel at my local orchard. I have a hand cranked cider press, so I usually buy several bushels to press cider, then freeze it.

If you are looking for local orchards, try pickyourown.org., maybe there's one pretty close that you don't know about!

Annie

OMG! I've been to two different orchards here in Indiana in the last month and they were both charging $12.00 a peck. I bought 2 pecks. One was a Jonathon and the other was a Jonathon crossed with something else.

Madonna

OMG again. I just called another orchard that is a good distance from my home but has been around as long as I can remember. They sell 1/4 peck for $5, 1/2 peck for $10 and a full peck for $18 if you pick them yourself. Rip off! The price I quoted on my previous post was for already picked apples and is about 5 miles from my home. Top varieties as well. I'll stick to my local orchard even though I think their prices are high, too. At least I won't be using much gas to get there and home.

By the way, since it looks like I'm going to stay on my place for a lot longer than my late husband wanted me to, I went out yesterday and bought four big apple trees to plant. One McIntosh, one Jonathon, one Gala Beauty and one Pink Lady. I'm also getting ready to put in an acre of hops and a large portion of my garden in garlic. Even if for some reason I won't be able to stay here for years and years, these plantings will raise the value of the value of the place. Hopefully this won't be the only planting of hops. I'd like to put in one or two more acres next year and more after that. Wish me luck as I start to "grow beer". Oh, and a substance in hops has been discovered by scientists to kill out the virus that is killing the bee population. I have the info here somewhere. The substance is put on something then placed in the hive and the bees step in it. It then kills any of the virus the bees have on them or any they come in contact with.

Madonna

bcskye

I hear you on growing your own apples. Last year I harvested 16 bushels of apples. This year due to frost my crop is very small so we are visiting our local commercial orchard to get apples for apple sauce. I grafted 5 young trees myself and was elated that some of them were big enough this year to bear 2-15 apples each. I suppose in a few years I will have so many I will have to put out a sign and sell the surplus. Looking forward to that day.

I also planted 2 honeycrisp as there is no way I will ever pay $85 a bushel for any apple (the market price on Honeycrisp around here). We got 17 honeycrisp apples this year on my small trees so looking forward to bigger crops in the future as the trees get bigger.

My favorite for sauce is McIntosh as it sure cooks up fast and the sauce is very smooth. I did a bunch of Ambrosia last year into sauce from a friend's tree and was surprised how good it was (no sugar needed).

The neat thing about growing your own is all the heirloom apples you can grow that are hard to find in the stores in my area (Kidd's orange, NW Greening, Northern Spy, Albemarle Pippen, Macoun, ect).

Glad to hear you have Jonathan. I always enjoyed that variety for cooking and eating fresh too.

Madonna, good luck with your apple trees. They have a lot of pests, and require regular care, but they'll reward you with lots of apples. I have 3 Delicious trees, one old Wolf River and one Gala type that I don't really know what it is. Last year was a banner year, this year I got pretty much none, although local orchards have trees loaded down with apples.

Good luck with the hops too, I even considered doing that myself. Here in Michigan the craft beer business is exploding, with Grand Rapids being named Beer City or some such thing. Lots of local beer makers want local hops, so I think there would be a market. I'm going to have to keep thinking about that...

I just bought a variety called Blondee, I was surprised how much I liked it. Much like Golden Delicious, but hard and crunchy. My favorite for cooking is Empire, but I like MacIntosh for sauce. I almost never see Empire any more and Jonathan is the one that kept longest last year in my "cold storage".

So you're staying put? Dig out that cider press!

Annie

Hi, Annie and Spartanapples! Yes, I'm hoping for good luck with both the apples and the hops. I would love to find a Wolf River apple tree to buy. My friend is temporarily just outside Chicago and she brags so much on them. Her daughter and son-in-law just brought her some from Wisconsin. My Gala is a Gala Beauty.

Yes, Annie, I'm keeping the place and staying for as long as possible. I know a lot of people would not agree since I'm 72, but I feel like it's the right thing for me to do for me. You really should seriously consider the hops. The craft beer business here in Indiana has exploded as well. The initial cost can vary according to what you do yourself. The heavy posts to support the trellises can cost a lot, but if you have trees you can harvest off of your place, that cuts it down tremendously. The rest isn't too bad financially and hops plants are perennial. Care over the growing season is not bad at all. The harvest day is labor intensive, but if you have lots of family, friends and/or FFA, it can be a combination of harvest, learning and big party.

Madonna

Annie, I forgot to mention my hens are laying about six eggs every two days. You are the one who helped encourage my desire to get them and now I'm planning on expanding my flock. Life is good!

Madonna

Madonna:

Wolf River is a very large fruiting apple that originated in Wisconsin in the late 19th century. I grew up with a large standard wolf river tree in my yard. Sometimes only 2-3 apples needed to make a pie as they were so large. This variety tends to be soft, yellow/pink stripes, somewhat dry and very good for baking or drying. Not much for eating fresh. It still has a cult following here in Wisconsin where I live.

My favorite pie apples are NW Greening (also originated in WI) and Regent (U of MN introduction). I suppose everyone has their own favorites but these two have very distinct flavors when cooked. Just my preference. I once made a pie from Regent and served it to company that stopped in to visit. They were so elated about the pie they asked me what apple I made it with. Then they asked if I could send them a tree? I guess they were just as impressed with the pie as I was.

Below is a NW Greening from a tree I grafted myself:

Nothing like fresh eggs, is there? They are completely different than anything I've found in stores and mine even taste different than the ones I can get from the local Amish farms.

I thought hops needed supports, as they are a vine, and was wondering about harvest. So it's hand harvested, like grapes. Elery would like to put in a couple of acres of garlic, if we had a market, but I think hops are the big "goer" right now, as well as chestnuts.

This year I planted 3 pear trees, 100 asparagus crowns, 32 red raspberry bushes, 6 blueberry bushes. One pear tree and one blueberry bush did not survive. Next year I want to add another 100 asparagus crowns, bring my blueberry patch up to at least a dozen and maybe plant a couple of plum trees. Ideally, I'd like to have apples, peaches, pears, plums, maybe apricots. Oh, and we planted bass, yellow perch, catfish and bluegill in the pond, and although we lost some when the back dike failed (along with what my DH figures was 4 MILLION gallons of water from our 2 acre pond), there are still fish in there that I see whenever I go out with fish food.

Annie