All About Apples

Fall is synonymous with apple picking for a lot of Canadians. Now is the time we start to see Canadian apple varieties creeping into grocery stores all across the country. Our terrific new intern, Miranda, has a serious love for farms, and she went north of the city this weekend to a local apple orchard (Albion Orchards) to learn about apples.  She brought us a bag of the most delicious, crisp Macintosh apples and shared some interesting apple facts. Here's her report:

Did you know that apples last a whole year in storage? This means that a lot of apples in stores right now are in fact from a whole year ago.

Farmer Scott explained that apple trees are like people, they thrive when they are younger and yield far more apples then older trees. As trees get older, they produce less apples than their younger counterparts.

Apple trees can continue to produce apples well into their 40^th year! The trees at Albion Orchards ranged from 2 years to 40 years old!

A lot of apple orchards have pick-your-own orchards – and this means that a lot of apples get knocked off the trees in the process of picking. These apples are still delicious and often get made into apple cider – yum!

Apple picking tips: twist the apple in one direction until it comes off the tree – don’t pull! If you pull the apples you can damage the branch that it grows on and prevent new apples from growing in that spot next year. Also, pulling apples causes more apples from the top of the tree to fall of, leaving more apples on the ground.

Thanks Miranda!