The tree in the front yard continues to put on quite the color show. The glow from these orange tinted leaves casts a wonderful color on the front bedroom. Thanks for the show, Mother Nature.
city boys, garden, recipes, small town life
Stand Back, Johnny Appleseed! Apples, Apples, Apples!
09/30/2014
It looks like my countless hours gazing longingly at the apple tree in the backyard, sending it good growing mojo, and dreaming of delicious baked goods paid off. We’ve hit the apple lotto, folks, and the payout is huge! I had no idea one tree could produce so many apples. Maybe it’s because the tree was never harvested last fall. Maybe it’s the little apple dance I did under the tree this spring. Or maybe we’re just lucky jerks who bought a house with a magic apple tree. Whatever the reason, we should be able to eat an apple a day for the next three years from the fruit of this one tree!
Let me tell you, the anticipation of testing the apples for tastiness was quite a burden. It kicked off this spring, when the tree filled with leaves and blooms.
“Do you think we’ll actually be able to eat them?” The Mister asked.
“I hope so. But I don’t know.” I said.
We watched as the buds turned into little green fruit. And as the apples grew and started to turn red I asked The Mister, “Do you think they’ll be edible?”
“Gee, I hope they are,” he replied.
Starting sometime in mid-July, our curiosity got the best of us. We plucked an apple off the tree and sliced into it. It wasn’t ripe (of course) but it looked like an apple and wasn’t full of worms so it seemed promising enough. Every few weeks we’d pluck another apple off the tree for another taste test. And each time we got more and more hopeful that the apples would indeed be tasty eventually.
Well, folks, it has finally happened. The apples have ripened and they are delicious! I mean, they’re no Honey Crisp apple. They’re more like a Red Delicious, which is probably what they really are. But they’re apples growing on a tree in our backyard! And there are a ton of them!
I don’t know how many apples make a bushel but I’m sure we’ve picked at least that many so far. In the past two weekends I have filled one giant IKEA bag and four reusable grocery bags with apples. I’ve given two bags of apples to neighbors and have a few more bags earmarked for friends back in the city. I plan to freeze some apples for winter baking but I’m actually going to keep most of them in the refrigerator. That’s the wonderful thing about apples — they keep for months when refrigerated.
I’ve also turned out two batches of apple butter recently. Both recipes used the crock pot, and let me tell you, nothing makes a house smell better than cooking apples! The first batch of apple butter, using a recipe from AllRecipes, was a little lackluster but we happily smeared it on toast anyway. For the second batch I used Brown Eyed Baker’s Slow Cooker Apple Butter recipe. OH. MY. GOODNESS. I want to eat this apple butter by the spoonful!
Stand back, Johnny Appleseed. There’s a new king of apples in town!
Images: This American House
The tree in front of the house is the big entertainment around here. It’s putting on a slow color show with oranges and pinks and yellows and golds all sharing equal time in the spotlight.
You know that old saying “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?” That’s basically how we feel about fall. If we can make summer stick around, we may as well decorate for fall. And nothing says hello fall better than three rather ginormous pumpkins on the front porch, right?
Sometimes it pays to procrastinate. OK, actually, we’re not really procrastinating with the landscaping. We were given the advice by a landscape architect that we should live with the landscaping for one full year before we make any major changes. While we wanted to rush out and buy all sorts of new plants and shrubs for the house this summer, we held back. And even if we had wanted to buy a bunch of shrubs, holy cow are they expensive!
As city boys, we had no concept of the cost of landscaping. In the dozen or so apartments we’ve rented over the years, landscaping was always the responsibility of the landlord. Plants and grass and trees and shurbs were the farthest things from our minds. Now that we’re homeowners, we’re getting a crash course in Landscaping 101 … along with a little bit of Economics 101.
On a recent trip to the local hardware store, we were delighted to see a sign announcing 60% off all perennials and shrubs. Of course, this late in the season the selection was somewhat lacking. Still, The Mister and I stood in front of the discounted perennials and tried to find something to take back to the house.
We ended up with two Purpleleaf Sand Cherry plants, plus two other shrubs and an annual. I actually thought we were buying three Purpleleaf Sand Cherries but when I got home I realized we only had two of them.
We don’t really know where these shrubs will live on a permanent basis but we do know that we need to get them into the ground before it gets too cold. So we planted the two Purpleleaf Sand Cherries in the side yard. Once spring arrives we can either move them or, more likely, fill in around them to create a bed of shrubs in our side yard.
Digging holes in the ground always reminds me of those Loony Toons cartoons when Bug Bunny would dig his way to China. It also usually gets Peter Gabriel’s Digging in the Dirt playing on a continual loop in my mental jukebox. Yes, folks, that’s just how my mind works!
They may not look like much right now but the shrubs will (hopefully) fill out quickly. They are supposed to grow to seven feet in height and five to seven feet in circumference. And, again, if spring arrives and we think they should be moved, we’ll dig them back up and move them. At 60% off their original price, they were just too good to pass up!
Images: This American House
