Harvesting and Storing Apples

[Thanks for the Crepes]

We used to live in Jericho and then Essex Junction, Vt. We were lucky enough to live right down the road, a couple miles away from an apple orchard. Us kids picked many bushels of McIntosh and picked up some "drops" off the ground. The drops were a lot cheaper than the ones you picked off the trees. $2 a bushel for drops;  I think tree apples were $6 a bushel. Both included the baskets.

 

Not like today when "Pick your own" is a tourist attraction and costs much more than you could buy the item in question at the local grocery.

 

This was a different time, when the Honor System actually worked.

 

We'd immediately process the drops into applesauce, apple butter or apple pies to freeze and cook later through the winter.

 

The ones we picked off the trees were stored in there bushel (8 gal.) baskets in our unheated basement. It wasn't heated per se, but apparently, the ambient heat from the rest of the ranch house kept the basement from freezing. The washer and dryer were down there, and so were the apples.

 

I adore McIntosh picked freshly off the tree. They are seasonal, and you will have a tough time finding them in the south, like I do. They don't keep very well, but in our unheated, but not frozen Vermont basement, these bushel baskets provided me with a lot of pleasure eating these fresh off the tree treasures for most of our desolate winter.

 

Folks say if you refrigerate them they become mealy, and I keep my fridge almost frozen to keep milk and stuff longer. Probably not a good place for my beloved apples.

 

The McIntosh do fine for months in a root cellar-like unheated basement in the Great White North.

 

The season for them is coming up again! I can't wait, my favorite.