2022, 2023, 2024 Fruit seasons

[Jeff]

I  processed a 5 gallon pail of apples yesterday into applesauce. Another 5 picked and ready for today. I also picked 5 quarts of blueberries. So sweet this year.



 

 

 

[thecfarm]

Them apples look good!!! 
Are those yours?
I have not even checked on mine this year.
I don't spray them. 
Some years are good, some years the apples are so bad, I don't get nothing.

[SwampDonkey]

We don't spray here either. Years ago, we had the best apples when we let young cattle run in the orchard. They would keep the fallen apples ate up so they would not perpetuate the rail road worms. I believe that was the way it was always done on old homesteads. You always had some cows and apple trees. The old tree up on the woodlot, that was planted over 100 years ago, was always kept ate up by the wildlife. The apples were good, but only in October when the frost hit it to ripen them up. Around here we would call them a winter storage apple. I remember when I was 6 or so, we stayed at a neighbor's during fall harvest, the lady would dry sliced apples by stringing them near the wood stove. She had several 1 gallon jars full of pickled eggs, but some may have been water glassed. My grandmother used to do that but they were in crocks in the basement.

[SwampDonkey]

Jeff likes his apple sauce. 

[SwampDonkey]

First pickings of black elders, probably a couple pounds.

[Al_Smith]

I miss counted and some how missed local musk melons by about three weeks ..Sutters a local produce company has 500 acres of produce  around Pandora Ohio ,about 30 miles from me .That ground was once part of the great black swamp area of Ohio .Very rich organic soil .It will grow anything .

[SwampDonkey]

Be mid September here before the cantaloupe is any good. Takes a good 90 days. Planted June 15th from seedlings.

[SwampDonkey]

I picked another couple pounds of black elders to freeze for later processing.

[twar]

I picked another couple pounds of black elders to freeze for later processing.

What do end up doing with the elder, i.e. what is "later processing"?

[SwampDonkey]

I thaw the berries. Then run it through my food mill to get the seeds out. So I have juice and pulp. So from there I can make jelly or syrup. If I make juice it gets tossed into a steamer juicer after running through the mill. Not suppose to cook the elderberries with the seed in. The juicer leaves only juice, no pulp.

Food Mill

Steamer Juicer

[nativewolf]

SD- neat to see the elderberries, we have a few wild but nothing we could pick for that quantity.  Are those planted?

I like summer apples, Cornell is the know all be all of apples and there are many documentaries of their work on apple preservation and genetic material collection from the apple worlds "home range" in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia after the fall of the USSR.

[thecfarm]

#elderberries #herb #short Elderberries Good for come see - YouTube

we just saw some beside the road the other day.
Wife is not really able to walk out to get the berries. Most times it's very uneven where they grow. I just cut the heads off and she picks them off the stems and makes jelly.
But not this year. We just have too much going on.
The bushes just grow beside the road, most times in a wet area. 
Last year there was a lot around the brook just down the road. This year there are not many there.

[SwampDonkey]

SD- neat to see the elderberries, we have a few wild but nothing we could pick for that quantity.  Are those planted?

Around my place we have just the red elders in the wild. I have a row of the black planted in the garden. We do have wild black ones in this region, but I have not seen any close by. I have seen them along woods roads 30 miles south of here. They each flower at different times of year up here. The red ones flower before the snow is all gone, late April- early May as they leaf out. The black ones flower in July after the leaves have been out awhile.

[SwampDonkey]

The robins have picked holes in a half dozen apples on the tree this year, so that reduces my harvest some more. :D

[SwampDonkey]

I got another 3 lbs yesterday off the edlerberries. I'll pick more on Sunday. They are ripening fast.

[21incher]

I have probably 400 pounds of elderberries that are ripening and should be ready next week problem is Tuesday I have cataract surgery and cannot lift or bend for 3 weeks so looks like I will have to leave them and the grapes for the birds now. Timing is everything with stuff like this.

[SwampDonkey]

If you intended to pick 400 lbs, I hope you have a crew. They have to be stem free and free of green berries. That's a lot of work for one guy at about 1 lb an hr of picking and cleaning. :D

[thecfarm]

Maybe one too many zeros.
I picked what I think was 4-5 pounds. That took a while.

[21incher]

If you intended to pick 400 lbs, I hope you have a crew. They have to be stem free and free of green berries. That's a lot of work for one guy at about 1 lb an hr of picking and cleaning. :D

Each berry cluster is about a pound now and there are hundreds of them. Necer had elderberries like this before.  I did 100 pounds a day when I made wine from them. Trying to find people that want some. I am hoping to at least save a couple 

[SwampDonkey]

I've never seen a 1 lb elder umble before. :D

[SwampDonkey]

3 pints of elderberry syrup.

[SwampDonkey]

Processing the Concord grapes today and making juice. I saved aside 5 cups for making a small batch of jelly. Just about done the steaming process, next is bottling and water bathing. 

[SwampDonkey]

12 - 750 ml bottles of Concord grape juice.



Had 1 litre left over for enjoying in a day or so.

[SwampDonkey]

4 pints of grape jelly from the reserved grape juice.




P.S. Had some new elderberry syrup on my vanilla ice cream last night. Oh my goodness...mmm mmm.  ;D

[GaTrapper]

Looks good Swamp Donkey!