24 Mar Mon 2014
At the Seed of an Apple...
To be honest, there really isn't any part of farming that I haven't enjoyed at least a little bit so far--any kind of planting, caring, harvesting, selling, or maintaining all have their level of soul-deep satisfaction. But at the end of the day, my passion on the farm will still be the orchards--my first memory of the gnarly old trees was getting stung by a bee that wanted a black-spotted apple more than I did--and I haven't been able to get over my love for the darn fruit yet.
One of the stunning truths about apples, is that they're more strongly related to each other than one human is to another--you see, if left to their own natural chemistry, an apple tree grown from seed will grow so with such intensely different characteristics than its heritage that the apples it produces often aren't even edible. Johnny Appleseed knew this, but back then, apple trees didn't often produce sweet eating & baking apples--they produced sour & bitter fruits that were perfect for making a safe and delicious beverage drunk even more commonly than water...hard cider! By planting trees from seeds rather than grafting, he helped spread the population of trees all over the east coast, which is home to over 30,000 varieties of apple tree.
Apple seeds are also an ingenious indicator of apple ripeness, too! If you cut an apple in half around the width, the seed pods look like a star (or a star anise) in the center--at the beginning growing stages, the seeds are w translucent white color. As the apples mature, the seeds darken into a rich brown color. Believe me, during the apple season we take a lot of bites trying to get to the seeds with our teeth to tell whether the apples are ready to be picked! (Apples grow the most in the two last weeks before ripening, in which they can easily double their size!).
In order to grow apples with similar characteristics that our customers & fans can recognize and identify with, most orchards are grown with a method called grafting, but that will have to wait for another night & another post.