My Parents’ Farm Cannot be Converted into a Cider Apple Orchard

The former dairy farm that my parents own now have beef cattle on it, and a small orchard. I have thought about expanding the orchard so that I did not have to buy apples or pears to make cider with.

The location is a good one, as it has a little microclimate from being an island in the middle of a very large river. The running water and low elevation keep it slightly warmer, so it doesn’t frost early in the fall, and the last frost is also early. When it snows, as it rarely snows on the west side of the Cascade Mountains, it is light and doesn’t stick around.

The real problem, though, is that life would be too easy. The river runs around and also though the soils of the island, creating sub-irrigation. During the summer, it is possible to dig two feet down and hit water. Some rootstocks do not like having so much access to water. Also, having so much water accessible to an apple tree plumps them up full of water, diluting the flavor. So while I might have more juice per apple, it would be a flavorless juice.

I wrote to Stephen Hayes of Fruitwise Heritage Apples in England asking what he thought about the high water table condition. He responded, “Hot dry climate + irrigation= lots of large attractive fruit, but I believe we get better flavours without it. No apple loves drought, but in the hot dry summer of 2003 we had a reduced crop of dessert apples, and they were small, but flavour and sugar levels were high.” That advice there is sort of the nail in the coffin for increasing my folk’s orchard, as they also have maritime summers, where it stays in the upper 70s, which probably isn’t hot enough.

Yes, I still ponder over the idea of having an orchard, but at the same time, I think about how much work it is, and wonder if I should listen to that pear farmer who told me not to plant my own trees but to buy what I need and let them do all the work. It would let me concentrate more on making tasty cider.

My Parents' Farm

On my parents’ farm is a small orchard of six apple trees and two pear trees near the house. We don’t know what they all are, as they were planted long before they bought that farm (Incidentally, my dad told my husband on our wedding day that my husband had now bought the farm). The area in which they live has an endangered deer species, so my dad fenced off the orchard as a kennel for the dogs, which makes us responsible pet owners for having the dogs tied up without chaining them, allowing the dogs to run, and it keeps the deer away from the trees.

We do know that one of the trees is a yellow transparent. They ripen in late July. There is another tree that is a Spartan, but beyond that, we aren’t sure. Since I have gotten started in cider and researching apples, I have found out that one needs to pay attention to the bloom time, time they are ripe, along with looks and taste to try and find out what it is. However, I think that one may not be a standard apple, as the tree got diseased and Dad cut it down, but it sent up a new shoot and we have apples again. Since all apple trees are grafted, I doubt that it is the original tree that was grafted, but instead it is the rootstock apple. I guess there is a third option of it being a seedling tree, but the odds would be against that.

As for the two pear trees, I think one of the pear trees is a Bartlett, also known as Williams in Europe, because they are so popular. Since pears are not self pollinating and require a different variety for pollination, my best guess is that the other tree is a Anjou because it is the most popular pear that blooms at the same time as the Bartlett, but it would be easy to be wrong.

My Roots

I was an only child growing up on a dairy farm. My parents knew when I didn’t do my chores, as I didn’t have any siblings to pawn them off on. It was a lot of daily hard work with no time off for holidays or bad weather.

When I was a senior in high school, my father grew afraid of the ever increasing environmental pressers, and, in what I call his mid life crisis, sold all the cattle and went back to school. He is now a network troubleshooter for a large telecommunications company. I also went to school in the big city, and have since then been a government worker living in the city.

Thing is, I know how to do things like canning, sewing, gardening, etc. I don’t always do them, but I know how. So when the recession hit, I had managed to find myself a little duplex to rent that had enough dirt in the patio area to plant just a few herbs and tomato plants. When I moved in with my boyfriend now husband, we moved into a little ranch style house, and I started planting berries, peas, more herbs and tomatoes, blueberries, and even tried growing our own flowers for our wedding. My father and my husband made me a composter.

I try to be green when it is useful to me or saves me money. Composting gives me good rich soils without filling up our trash can, which I have to pay to have hauled away. I actually canned for the first time in years a few weeks ago. My parents bought down some apples that had been in storage a little too long, so I made them into apple sauce and then canned them because I couldn’t bear to waste something in which I could make useful while saving money from not having to go buy it.

I sort of have a “can do” attitude, and I think that is why I have taken to making cider and wines so much, and it all started by living on a dairy farm.

Pruning Grapes

It wasn’t raining this past weekend, so I got outside and started pruning the grapes that we have. Admittedly, I had to look this topic up in books and online.

Thing is, my established vines look nothing like the picture. I think the previous owner somehow kept piling the vines on top of existing vines, and then the year and a half of neglect… One of my friends, who is into grape wine, told me that the vineyards really whack and hack on the vines, but I wasn’t entirely sure. My husband and I went to Willamette Vineyards after Thanksgiving, and our wine tasting server actually happened to be one of the many founders of the vineyard. I started to explain my grape vines, but she quickly cut me off. “Cut them back! They are vines and will rebound like any other vine, so just cut them back.” Well, there I have it! I guess she had some vines at home, and they take over if let go. Funny, my grandparents used to have vines, but they did so poorly that they were taken out. I think the neighbor’s trees started robbing it of light.

Anyway, I’ve got the vines cut back to a basic skeleton now, but they still need some work. My pruning hand was getting tired, so I will try again the next time the weather is decent.

I should mention that there is a spot in the yard where a grape vine touched down. It might have gotten some dirt kicked over it, but it put down roots and has started growing in the middle of my yard. I should dig it up now that it is dormant and try to give it to someone.

My Yard

My husband and I managed to buy a bank owned house. The bank told us that the house had been empty since January, so we took that to mean a little over six months. Talking to the neighbors, we found out that it really meant 18 months. That would explain why the grapes are growing up into the dogwood and into the neighbor’s maple tree. But they were good grapes – neglected with a really hot summer made them really tasty. I just pruned them back into our yard and out of the trees and off of other plants.

Apparently, the original owners hired some landscaper to come in, who planted a whole bunch of evergreen trees. There were 12 trees along an 80’ fence, and all were taller than the house. That is 6 feet of diameter allowed per tree, so the trees aren’t exactly healthy. I would love to keep the blue spruce, but the sides of it are completely dead due to the other trees. In fact, we have no lawn, only moss, as sunlight doesn’t hit the ground.

So, the first thing that happen was that we cut out two trees that were right up against the house, a middle tree in the front yard that you can’t even tell was there because the other two have filled up the void, another tree in a bad place that would get tall if we left it alone, and one very large shrub that was blocking the entire dinning room window. We then limbed up all the other trees, which allowed light in. In one case, limbing the tree allowed visibility to pull out of the driveway safely.

Meanwhile, the neighbors are cheering, as they thought the house looked dark and hated the limbs coming into their yard. I actually have a picture taken inside the house during a summer day, and it looks like night time.

While my father was taking of limbs, I told him to go ahead and remove a tree on the corner of the lot because it had hardly any leaves on it in August. The neighbor’s maple was getting all the light. Only once he fell the small sickly tree did we realize it was a crab apple tree. Curses! I could use those for cider. Or could I? If we couldn’t tell in August that it was a crab apple, then there probably wasn’t enough crab apples on it to use. It was a sick tree.

The place has eight blueberry bushes, which I’m excited about, except that they are also planted too close together and some of them are really tiny compared to others, so I will try to transplant every other one to other places when we get the place a little more in shape. It also had some Marion berries, but last year, they never ripened, but instead were green and started fermenting on the vine. If they don’t do well this next year, we will probably take them out and replace them with something else.

Unfortunately, we recently had a windstorm take out half of a tree, so we called in a logging company, who took out six of the taller, more difficult trees. We hate doing it, and it was costly, but these trees are just not healthy. As a result, our moss lawn is dying because it can’t hack having that much sunlight on them.

I have placed an order for two apple trees with the Home Orchard Society to plant in that area. That’s right – I’m eventually going to put five trees along the 80’ fence line, giving each tree 16’ of space. To boot, they shouldn’t grow taller than the house. Healthy trees, nice shade, happy owner.

Apple & Pear Breeding

Both apple and pear trees are made from grafting one kind of tree, called the scion, to a rootstock which will determine the size of the tree. This is because most apples and all pears are not self-fertile when they bloom. It takes another breed of apple to pollinate an apple, and it takes another breed of pear to pollinate a pear. If pollination does not occur, no fruit will grow.

Because of this cross-pollination, the seeds in the fruit contain the genetic make-up of two different breeds of trees, so the seed will not grow and be the same breed of tree that the fruit came off of, but a new breed. And just like how sibling animals are not exact genetic clones of each other, neither are two seeds from the same apple or pear. Worse yet, I’ve heard that about only 1 in 300 seeds grow up to be an edible fruit tree. Why, I was reading on Home Orchard Society’s forum about someone planting a cherry pit, and 10 years later, the tree has not produced fruit. They did not beat the odds. Makes you wonder how Johnny Appleseed managed to plant all those seeds, but he did.

Since there are fewer pear varieties than apples, the focus is usually on planting the big four – Bartlett (AKA Williams in Europe), Anjou, Comice, and Bosc. Do to their blooming periods, Bartlett and Anjou are planted together, and Comice and Bosc are planted together. Bosc blooms late in the season, and therefore cannot be pollinated by the early blooming Bartlett and Anjou.

Types of Cider Apples

What kinds of apples make good cider? On one level the answer is simple: the kinds you have available. Most amateur cidermakers, and even many professionals, use any varieties that re in season and readily available in sufficient quantities to press into juice. Almost any sound apple, from mouth-puckering wild crab to the most refined dessert variety, is worth adding to your cider blend, at least in small amounts.

“However, as with most simple things, there is an underlying art and subtlety involved in mixing and matching varieties to create the best ciders, both sweet and hard.” – Ben Watson, Cider: Hard & Sweet.

Not all apples are considered good for making pies out of, but they are tasty when eaten raw. Apples are that are soft make for good apple sauce, but maybe they are mild tasting.

For cider, a vast majority of cider makers who use real apples use a variety of apples to create a blend. However, the most popular apples used for making cider are not considered edible, unless they are heirloom apples (old breeds). Cider apples taste bitter when eaten. These include varieties like Dabinett, Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, and Tremlett’s Bitter, varieties you just can’t buy at the grocery store.

If a cider maker does use a common eating apple or heirloom apples in their blend, such as Golden Delicious, Jonagold, or Granny Smith, they actually let it stay on the tree much longer than what fresh eating apples are. Also, cidermakers love using crab apples, which are extremely acidic and high in tannins.

Apples varieties have been tested for their acidic and tannin components. Therefore, cider apples are classified by how much acid and tannin one has:

• High tannin, low acid – bittersweet
• Low tannin, low acid – sweet
• High tannin, high acid – bittersharp
• Low tannin, high acid – sharp

These descriptors do not indicate how much sugar is in the apple. In fact, most grocery store apples are low in tannin and high in acid, making them sharp, not sweet, apples.

Classifications helps cidermakers create a blend to create a well balanced cider before fermentation. Some apples can be used by themselves to make a cider, but they will lack in some areas and be overpowering in others. This would include color, aroma, astringency, sugar, acidity, and other desirable traits.

Funny thing is, after the officials tell you what apples make good cider, they will also tell you to go ahead and try using other apples. There are new varieties coming out, and they are untested for cider, so they might be good.

If you would like to see some lists of cider apples, take a look at these websites:

• http://www.cider.org.uk/part2.htm
• http://www.cider.org.uk/appledat.htm
• http://maritimefruit.wsu.edu/Cider07.html#appendix
• http://www.greenmantlenursery.com/2008revision/fruit2008/apple-cider2008.htm
• http://homepage.ntlworld.com/scrumpy/cider/ciderapp.htm
  
• http://www.crockettdesign.com/whiteoakcider/wourorchard.html