Saturday we went to Hendersonville, NC. HV is the Apple Capital of North Carolina and there are apples everywhere. The crisp mountain air makes for great growing conditions!Out of all the apple farms and orchards only a few let you Pick your own. The one we go to is
Granddads apples. We have gone there several years now and really love it. They have pick your own, or you can buy pre picked. They have a huge orchard with lots of variety. They have a general store where you can buy cider and jams and jellies and cookbooks and country crafts. I myself had a homemade apple turnover. YUM!! The boys got little plastic apple shaped sippy bottles with apple cider in them. They have a gigantic corn maze and you can feed their llamas. It is really a neat place to visit.
So we got there and the apples they had available for picking were Golden Delicious and Honeycrisps. I am not a huge Golden Delicious fan, but I AM a Honeycrisp lover.
Honeycrisps are probably one of THE BEST apples grown. It is a cross between a honeygold and the Macoun. It is crisp, with a firm smooth flesh, sweet and juicy with the perfect apple taste. It makes a great fresh eating apple, great pies, applesauce, juice and cider. It is my all around favorite apple and has a long shelf life. Honeycrisps are not really an apple you can walk into any store and find, which is a shame.
We picked and picked and picked and ate apples. My dad said "these apples couldn't be any better if they were stolen!"(Apparently stolen apples taste better??)Here are Peter and Finn holding some of their hard picked fruit. I have never seen them eat so many apples!!
Finn getting in the shade and finding the perfect
Finn getting in the shade and finding the perfect
apple!
another "squints" picture. It was so hot and sunny outside, but that didnt stop Peter from picking a huge bag of apples!!
We ended up with 2 bushels of apples.
Mom and Dad took a bushel and I took a bushel.
They only charge 20 a bushel and we had 100 pounds of apples for $40 total. So for 40 cents a pound, you cant beat it.
I actually need to refrigerate them, or they will lose their crisp.
Tomorrow...APPLESAUCE TUTORIAL!!
5 comments:
Hubby and I were talking about going apple picking today! Mmmmm. I'm looking forward to the first fresh apple crisp of the season. Yum!
Wow, they are great..We do apple picking here in Maine too..What fun..
What great apples and beautiful pictures of little guys..
HA! Chuck 5-0, how I miss your dry humor.
You're knowledge of apples astounds me, you're like a walking encyclopedia!!!
Jealous about the apple picking, my parents used to have trees when we were kids, but didn't take care of them. There's nothing better than fresh from the tree apples! I need to find an orchard around here!
Thanks for the info on the apple orchard. You may see a similar blog enrty from me in the near future.
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