The picking calendar
Ordinary orchards give you eight good weekends a year. Ours never stops, because enough of our varieties ripen in weather no apple should tolerate. The current month is marked. Click any variety for its card.
Winter picking, explained
From December through February the Permafrost Pippin rows freeze solid, fruit included. Picking one means renting a chisel and mallet at the stand for six dollars, finding an apple you like, and tapping it free at the stem. It comes off in one piece and thaws on the drive home.
Dress warm, work in pairs, and keep your gloves on. The apples are at their best below fifteen degrees and so, our winter regulars insist, are they.
"You haven't picked an apple until you've picked one with a mallet."
Spring apples
March opens with Horseradish Gold, a pale gold apple that starts bright and finishes somewhere behind your eyes. Mud Season follows it through April, tasting the way the parking lot looks. Both rows sit on the low ground, so the stand loans out rubber boots in three sizes: too big, too small, and wet.
Spring pickers get the orchard mostly to themselves, plus whatever Old Mushy did over the winter. Bring jars for that. Bring patience for everything else, because the trees are barely awake and neither are we.
"Mud Season tastes like March. People buy a second peck. We've stopped asking why."
Summer apples
Summer is our loud season. The Gasper comes in through June and takes most of the credit, The Ballpark ripens for July cookouts, and The Deviled Egg does what it does whether anyone asks or not. By August the tiny Barely apples are on, Scoville Blush is ready for the brave, and August Regret is going soft on schedule, wasp included.
Pick early in the day. The fruit is cooler, the rows are quieter, and the row 12 waiver line is shortest before ten. Milk is stocked at the stand all summer, and lemonade too, for people who read the Gasper card and picked it anyway.
"August is when the orchard smells the most like itself. Make of that what you will."
Come every month
The Year-Rounder pass is $95 and covers one peck a month for a year, all twelve months, including the two months most people would rather skip. Punch card included.
See picking prices