Gravenstein ready! Opening Tues, Aug 13th, 2013.

Opening day to pick Gravenstein apples is tomorrow! (Tues, Aug 13th!!!).

We have half a row of Gravensteins and people love them, so don't wait too long!

There are plenty out there though.

(FYI: Gravenstein are the ONLY apples ready right now. Gala apples will be next but not for another few weeks.)

Gravensteins are an oldie but goodie variety of apple. They are excellent for baking and applesauce, probably one of the best, in many people's opinion. Sweet-tart flavor with an excellent crunch.

Many people I know, will let the apples sit for awhile before they use them for their pies, almost until they are getting a few days from throwing out, but not too soft that you can't use one of those apple/peeler/corer "machines." They make a really good pie filling that breaks down some, instead of staying in stiff slices.

My mouth is watering!!

If anyone has some good comments about Gravenstein, I'd love to hear them...why you like them so much, what you use them for, etc.

I tried to put up plenty of signs so you can find your way to them. The easiest/closest way is to park near the office, walk behind the shop and follow my signs out. You can also park all the way out back like you would for picking the other varieties but you will have a farther distance to walk. There are signs directing you to the Gravenstein out there too.

We are a little short handed this early in the season, so do the best you can! We will have more people working to help you once Gala apple picking starts.

Looks like Bartlett Pears are ready too. They seem so early this year but they are starting to drop so we will pick them! We will be selling them just like last year, WE-Pick in the smaller buckets (I think they are a 2 gallon size) for $5 a bucket. A regular 5 gallon bucket of pears, will be $11/bucket. No U-Pick of pears.

Other Farm Happenings:

In one of our blueberry varieties, we pick the fruit by machine on the 3rd and 4th picking. We have a really old machine that we do the best we can with. The picture below is of the fingers that shake back and forth and knock the berries off the bush. They are collected below in a conveyor belt and brought to the top of the machine to be put into a crate. When we first used the machine, we had to take out every other level of fingers because it was picking more green fruit than blue! This picking there weren't many greens left on the bush, so we had to put back in the fingers so it would knock off ALL the blue! A bit of a tedious job but you have to do it.

Farm Vehicle Adventures:

You never know what kind of adventure you are going to have when you are driving a farm truck off the property especially loaded with 9000 lbs of blueberries! After I had left the farm to head to the blueberry receiving station, my mind started thinking, what would I do if I broke down with all these berries?? But since my mind usually goes to worse case scenario, I told myself not to worry about it until it happens.

Five minutes later, I am at the 4 way stop intersection by EZ Orchards, I pull up to the stop sign and my truck dies. Keep trying to get the engine to turn over but then I notice two different cars waving their arms and yelling fire! I hop out to see what is going on....no fire that I see but obviously there must have been something. I try to call two people that could help me on the farm, my dad and Noe but they are both doing things where they can't hear their phones. All this traffic is trying to get around me, backing everything up. Within 10 minutes, 2 people I know come to help. One offers to tow me out of the way but I only have a pathetic rope and he doesn't have one at all. Then a farmer friend comes with a truck and a chain! Just what we needed! So emergency over, I am able to get out of the way. My mom is able to finally track my dad down and long story short, we end up being able to get the truck to the place to deliver the berries. So no big deal, we survived. Always a fun day at work! Sorry if you were the one of the ones stuck behind me :)