Fair Weather

The finest use for Macoun apples

We picked our second half-bushel of apples at Doe Orchards in Harvard this past weekend.  The Macouns were large, perfectly ripe, and will be turned into Molly O’Neill Apple Walnut Upside Down cakes as well as sundry other treats.  Two weeks ago we picked the last of our sweet corn, gorged on two ears apiece, and froze the balance.  The lettuce in our garden is brilliant green and growing like gangbusters.

For gardeners in eastern Massachusetts, it has been a very good year.  Total rainfall was almost exactly normal (and slightly above normal for September), there were no Irene-type weather events to upend the season.  The last frost was in early May and, as this writing, there has yet to be a ‘first frost’ inside I-495.  It was never oppressively hot for extended periods.  In short, it was an excellent year for plants, whether in the vegetable garden or the flower beds.

As gardeners, we tend to remember the bad years; the ones where it rained for weeks on end or it didn’t rain at all.  We remember the year that our perennials and annuals shriveled under relentless heat or our trees were ravaged by winter moth caterpillars.  The mind retains the heartaches.

This morning (October 1), this
container of annuals on our front
porch was still in full bloom

We seem to forget years like these - the good years - and that’s a shame.  It’s the beginning of October and my container-bound annuals are still in bloom.  The coleus has grown large and lush.  There is still phlox and the eupatorium and asters are ablaze with a profusion of white and purple flowers.  Though the temperature barely touched 60 degrees this weekend, there is still a touch of summer in the garden.  The lawn is an emerald green.

I’m all too aware of the disastrous drought that continues to grip the Midwest.  We have no contract with nature that assures us five months of pleasant weather between the beginning of May and the end of September.  So, when nature delivers New England a spring and summer like the one we’ve had, we ought to celebrate it.

Perfect tomatoes at the
Topsfield Fair

In essence, that was the thought behind the end-of-season town and county fairs that were once a regional staple around the country.  We are fortunate that a handful live on in New England – especially in places like Topsfield and Fryeburg.  In another era, they were the tangible evidence of a good harvest.  Remarkably, they still highlight horticulture (even if the newspaper headlines are given over Ron Wallace’s 2009-pound pumpkin, a world record).

A display of chrysanthemums
grown by backyard gardeners...

You can walk though those two fairs this week and see perfect tomatoes, chrysanthemums, carrots and dahlias; all grown by backyard gardeners.  They were picked on Thursday and entered in a narrow, four-hour window that evening.  They were judged Friday morning and are on display all week.  To me, they put to shame anything on display in a supermarket or florist’s shop. 

... and perfect ears of Indian corn

Horticulturally speaking, fortune smiled on us this year.  You could see it earlier this year in the displays at the Barnstable Fair (July) and the Marshfield Fair (August).  The season will end, of course.  We are already under twelve of daylight and shrinking at a rate of five to six minutes each day. I recognize that those final tomatoes and zucchini aren’t likely to ripen.  But the winter squash are losing those tell-tale green veins that separate the pickable from those that need more time, and the leeks are still growing.  Eventually, though, a cold-air mass coming down from Canada or Minnesota will put a ‘closed’ stamp on the season.

If you want to remember this year, I encourage you to make the trip to Topsfield before next Sunday.  If you’re more adventurous and have a full day, it’s a spectacular drive through fall foliage into southwestern Maine and the Fryeburg Fair, which also closes October 7.  Both are glorious throwbacks to another time.  Both are end-of-the-season bacchanals, yet perfectly suitable for all ages.  Go for the pumpkins, go for the Midway.  Enjoy the sight of a basket of perfect Indian corn.  But go.

Apple Picking Time, the 2011 Edition

I picked my first apple when I was in my twenties and it was a revelation:  apples were delicious.  Until that time, I believed that apples came in two varieties: ‘tasteless’ (Red Delicious) and ‘tasteless and mushy’ (MacIntosh).  It was only when I plucked an apple from a tree, polished it on my shirt and bit into it with an audible ‘snap’ that I comprehended that apples could be tart or sweet or explode with flavor in my mouth.

From that day forward, I was hooked.  For the past thirty-plus years, picking apples in late September has been one of the joys of early autumn.

Honey Pot Hill is 200 acres of
apple orchards.  We walked a very
long way (white line) to get to them.

Yesterday, Betty and I ventured out for our first apple picking of the season.  For the past decade, we have traveled 45 miles north to Doe Orchards in Harvard, Massachusetts (I last wrote about it in September 2009).  We did so because Doe has Macouns and, having tasted dozens of varieties of pyrus malus, I have come to believe that Macouns are the pinnacle of appledom. 

This year, though, we broke with tradition and went to Honey Pot Hill, an orchard in Stow, Massachusetts.  Honey Pot Hill is in its third generation of growing you-pick apples (the farm’s website says Honey Pot Hill was one of the first in the country to offer pick-your-own fruits). 

Betty picking Macouns

Our reason for switching allegiances was not because of any disappointment with Doe but, rather, that Betty had a member of the fourth generation of the Martin family as her summer intern this year.  Chelcie Martin was energetic, self-motivating and hard-working; and we figured that if her family’s apples were as good as she was, it was worth investigating.

We had no idea of what we were getting into and, before I go further, let me emphasize that we came home with a peck (about thirty pounds) of the best Macouns we’ve ever tasted.  But Doe Orchards has 25 acres in apples.  Honey Pot Hill covers 200 acres (see map).  From the farm store, you drive a quarter mile to the entrance for ‘U-pick’ parking (with overhead banners to let you know you are on the right track.  The parking field alone is perhaps ten acres. 

We bought our peck-sized bag ($23) and set off for the Macouns.  We passed acres of trees bearing MacIntosh, Cortland, Empire, Ginger Gold, Spartan, Spencer, Royal Gala and Mutsu; finally encountering a directional sign indicating MACOUNS!  300 YARDS!  Many, many twists later, we found the trees – sturdy, mature trees with gorgeous fruit.  The Martin family also graciously provided dozens of ladders allowing pickers to get to the tops of trees.  We took full advantage, heaping up our bag with the largest Macouns we have ever encountered (and, yes, sampling one just for, ummm, quality control purposes).



Which one is the replica?

The orchards swarmed with people.  At Doe Orchards, we usually found perhaps two dozen cars in the modest lot and, as we picked, there was seldom more than one family nearby.  At Honey Pot Orchards, the trees buzzed with the sounds of humanity.

But that was nothing compared with the hive of activity back at the farm store.  Honey Pot Orchards has perfected the art of apple picking as all-day family entertainment.  There are dollar hay rides, a petting zoo, and a hedge maze that is an exact replica of the one at Hampton Court  (perhaps the Royal Palaces website should indicate that it is an exact replica of the one at Honey Pot Orchards).  A quick crowd estimate put the size of the contingent at the farm store and surrounding attractions at over a hundred.

Last evening, in what may be an apple’s finest incarnation, the first of our fresh-picked apples became the star of Molly O’Neill’s Apple Walnut Upside-Down Cake, which can be found in ‘A Well Seasoned Appetite’. Ms. O’Neill (who is Paul O’Neill’s baby sister in addition to other accomplishments) specifies Macoun apples in her recipe. Who can go against the instructions of the sister of a Yankee legend?

Honey Pot Orchards is 22 miles
from Boston's financial district

As I enjoyed my cake, though, I thought about Honey Pot Hill.  It sits 22 miles from Boston's financial district in an urban area of 5 million people.  Can it survive as a family farm to serve future generations of apple pickers?  I sincerely hope so.  Yes, it is part circus but the petting zoo and such are part of a marketing strategy and, on a gray day, many hundreds of people came to sample a bit of rural life.  We do what we need to do to survive.  The alternative - 200 acres of 'estate homes on the picturesque Sudbury River' - would mean a lost treasure for those future generations.