Friends of Pipers Orchard

We have a nice dolgo crab-apple in the orchard, which ripens earlier than most of our apples. The dolgo is sweeter than many crab-apples, and is listed a good for making jelly, but I can speak from personal experience that there’s a lot of overhead if you’re trying to include them while making applesauce. You can learn more about the dolgo at Orange Pippin.

The other day I took a couple of pictures of one of our Red Astrachan apples. The variety originated in Russia. For more information about the variety, you can visit the Orange Pippin website. To find out where ours are located, you can check out the orchard map.

Heading through Carkeek Park recently, I saw an apple tree along the trail in the lower meadow between the road and Piper’s Creek. It’s been there quite a while. Got these pictures this morning. It’s likely a seedling volunteer. Perhaps we can bring an apple from it to the Festival of Fruit on September 24th for apple identification. Mark your calendars now for the Festival – just 3 short months away!

One of our Gravensteins has some good netting and foot socks. Looks like it’ll produce well this year. Somewhat tempted to take some thread and a needle to patch a couple of small holes in the net. But not all that tempted.

Thought perhaps that I’d post pictures I capture while just walking by and through the orchard. Here are a couple from today. The apples are enjoying this weather.