Sunday, August 25, 2013

Apple Harvest


Our apple harvest came early this year, due to the exceptionally warm and dry spring and early summer weather.  It's a record crop, we've harvested over 50 gala apples from our small espaliered tree.  All organically grown.


Espalier is an ancient agriculture practice of pruning and tying the branches of a tree to a frame so that they grow in a flat plane against a wall or on a trellis.  This allows you to grow trees in small spaces and keeps the fruit within reach. This is a picture I took of the tree when we first planted it three years ago and started to train it to the wires we strung on the side of our garage.  



Here's what it looks like today.



It's grown so large it was difficult to get back far enough to take the picture without falling into the raspberry canes growing across from it.  This just shows how you can grow fruit trees in the smallest of spaces.  We'll trim and train it some more this fall, now that the harvest is over.


Here are some of my favorite apple recipes:

Apple Cinnamon Cake


Apple Raisin Croissants


Crispy Roasted Apples


Apple Cranberry Crostata


Squash Stuffed Baked Apples


1 comment:

  1. Hora apples look wonderful and your tree is shaping up beautifully. I have always loved the art of training espalier end trees. All you baking looks very tempting, all the care you pay to chopping and presenting the apples so perfectly is well worth it, it all loos scrumptious! Elaine

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