Our Apple Tree

Small apples from our tree

10 lbs of apples!

When we bought our house last April we suspected that one of the trees in our backyard was an apple tree. Unfortunately it didn't have any fruit on it last summer, so we stopped paying much attention to it. This spring I was surprised to see white blossoms all over it. I just assumed that the year before we must have moved in after it bloomed. Right before I left for Alaska in June I happened to notice while I was mowing the lawn that there were tiny green apples all over the tree! Since I was gone all summer, I was very happy to see the nearly-ripe apples when I got home in September. You can't really grow fruit trees in Alaska, so it is very exciting for us to have our own apple tree. We also have an italian plum tree which was covered in plums last year. This year it didn't have any. The hot and dry weather last year must be good for the plums and the cool wet weather good for the apple tree.

Tonight we picked all the apples. Some of them were really small, but most of them were good. Ryan cut up about 3 lbs of them and we boiled them down with some honeycrisp apple cider from our local farmer's market to make applesauce. We are VERY happy with how it turned out and can't wait to eat some for desert tonight. I found some good tips for making applesauce from this blog: www.foodinjars.com and of course from my mom!
-Molly