Local Video
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| Fall is prime time for apples |
By: JIM HAMMERAND, Staff Writer
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Posted: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 11:24 pm
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Just a few weeks into the world of professional apple picking, 16-year-old Mary Norbeck said she’s picked up a few tricks.
But the tall rural Webster girl still has a long way to go to keep up with her boss Ross Nelson, owner of Nelson’s Apple Farm.
“I’m looking not at the apple that I’m picking but at the next one I’m picking,” Nelson said as he walked from tree to tree, plucking apples from the branches. At his fastest, he can pick 12 bushels an hour — about 8 pounds per minute.
As peak apple picking season approaches, Nelson and other local farmers gave their best tips for taking home the best apples in the orchard.
Jo Ann Wellbrock, who with her husband owns Northside Apple near Highway 3, said she often finds the best fruit on the sun-facing side of her 1,000 trees.
“They just seem to get better on the south side first,” she said.
If they take more than a gentle pull and twist to come off the branch, Wellbrock said, they’re not ripe yet.
The most accurate measure of a variety’s ripeness, said Northfield’s Fireside Orchard owner Todd Harvey, is to sample slices set out by some orchards.
“The best of course is the taste test. Go ahead, take a bite,” he said, though orchard owners aren’t generally keen on customers sampling fruit in the field.
The coloration, size and timing of each variety differs, Harvey said, so particular pickers will want to figure out what qualities are most important to them and then learn more about their favorite varieties.
“The better the color, the better the flavor. That’s a pretty good rule,” said Denny Havlicek, owner of Veseli’s Happy Hill Orchard.
Honeygolds should reach a “bright, golden color” for best taste, he said, while Haralsons are ripe when they’re 90 percent red. For a Fireside apple with maximum sweetness, “its real important for that one to have as much red on it as you can find.”
But appearances aren’t everything, warned Bob’s Bluebird Orchard owner Bob Leif. His Webster orchard has a smallish, squat, bright-red apple called a Keepsake.
“You’ll never find it in a grocery store, it’s so ugly. But it’s probably one of the best apples we have,” he said.
Inside information from orchard employees and owners can send pickers in the direction of overlooked species or trees that are ready or particularly fruitful, Leif said.
“The average person would have a hard time I think determining whether an apple is ready or not. Sometimes they look ready and they really aren’t,” he said.
There’s only so much help even an experienced orchard owner like Leif can give. Through the years, he’s learned how to determine an apple’s ripeness from its texture, but he has a hard time explaining just how bumpy an apple should be.
“It takes a lot of years just to figure it out,” he said.
After finding ripe apples, pickers need be careful not to ruin the tree for other guests. As rookie picker Mary learned, ripe apples bruise easily and can fall to the ground from just a little shake.
“If you pull one off the branch and they all fall off, then they’re ripe,” she said.
Local orchards
• Apple Creek Orchard, 5524 185th St., Faribault, 507-334-9043
• Bob’s Bluebird Orchard, 26205 Fairlawn Ave., Webster, 952-461-3143
• Fireside Orchard and Gardens, 2225 Lonsdale Blvd. E., Northfield, 507-663-1376, www.firesideorchard.com
• Havlicek’s Happy Hill Orchard, 26526 Newport Ave., Veseli, 952-758-4386
• Kanne Orchard, 19365 Cannon City Blvd., 507-334-5147
• Nelson’s Apple Farm, 3270 Douglas Ave., Webster, 952-461-3355, www.nelsonsapplefarm.com
• Northside Apple, 4066 320th St. W., Northfield, 507-645-9753
• Trumps Orchard, 1020 St. Paul Ave., Faribault, 507-334-5167
How do you like these apples?
Minnesota orchards draw heavily from University of Minnesota apple varieties, and though a few favorites like Zestar and SweetTango are already gone, most varieties are still in season.
Mid-season apples:
Chestnut Crabapple, 1949, ripens early September
Red Baron, 1970, ripens mid-September
Sweet Sixteen, 1977, ripens mid- to late September
Honeycrisp, 1991, ripens late September
Late season apples:
Honeygold, 1970, ripens late September
Haralson, 1922, ripens late September to early October
Frostbite, 2008, ripens late September to mid-October
Regent, 1964, ripens early to mid-October
SnowSweet, 2006, ripens mid-October
Fireside/Connell Red, 1943, ripens mid-October
Keepsake, 1978, ripens mid-October
Prairie Spy, 1940, ripens late October
Source: University of Minnesota
— Jim Hammerand covers the city. He can be reached at jhammerand@northfieldnews.com or 645-1114. |
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