It is mid-October, and the season is starting to come to a close on the farm. We're soaking up the gorgeous fall colors, building another high tunnel, planting garlic, and getting everything squared away for the long winter to come.
We only have a few varieties of apples left to pick for the year (Goldrush, Golden Russet, Enterprise, Winecrisp, Black Oxford, and a few others here and there) along with Olympic Asian pears.
We have a great variety of delicious apples ripe now in our fruit stand and at the Ithaca Farmers Market, including:
Northern Spy- (arguably the best pie apple, just ask your grandma! Also great for eating, with a crisp texture, good flavor, and the perfect amount of tartness)
Jonagold- a cross between Jonathan and Golden Delicious. Crisp, juicy, and sweet, with some acidity and white flesh
Winecrisp- Beautiful deep purple skin, firm, crisp, fruity
Spigold- A cross between Northern Spy and Golden Delicious, these apples are usually quite large, crisp, with yellow flesh, and tend to be similar to a Northern Spy but sweeter. In our home apple crisp tasting tests, Spigold was one of the top performers. Try it in your pie or crisp!
Florina- tasty apple that is a beautiful purple with the bloom (natural wax an apple produces on its skin), and a beautiful red when polished on your shirt, with some nice white speckles. Medium firm flesh, sweet and tart.
Chieftain- Think Red Delicious. Gorgeous and tasty dark red apple with white speckles.
Fortune- Tasty yellow-fleshed apple, spicy flavor.
Keepsake- A galactic-looking red apple with green streaks and white flecks. Delicious, very sweet, firm, juicy, light yellow flesh. We will definitely be planting more of this variety!
Liberty Apples on the farm.
We received our second NRCS EQIP high tunnel grant, and we are making great progress on it. If you look closely, you can see it behind our barn in the photo above, and on the left-hand side of the photo below.
