In other years this would be the time of year we're wandering through the apple orchard, looking for those first ripening early season apples - Yellow Transparent , Zestar, Williams Pride or the famed Duchess of Oldenburg.
But it's not to be in 2023 for a late season freeze (21 degrees) in May dashed our hopes for a bountiful harvest.
Therefore, we won't be offering our spectacular organic apple cider this fall and there won't be a farmstand opening in the former horse barn.
Here's a report from Greg Peck (Cornell University) and Scott Ramsey (New York Cider Association), published on July 17 of this year that tells the sad story.
"For cider apple growers in New York, 2023 was set up to be a banner year. Many orchards that had been planted over the past 10 years were finally expected to be in full production... There was a tremendous bloom on cider apple trees in 2023.
Unfortunately, cold temperature returned with a vengeance on 18 May. Most region experienced temperature below freezing, with some locations getting into the mid-20s. Trees in bloom or with small fruitlets experience a range of damage from outright crop failure to varying levels of fruit loss and fruit peel damage...."
You can learn more about the frost/freeze event by visiting https://data.nysipm.org/weather-events/20230518/map.html
And Pennsylvania DEP has gathered information about Climate Change here.
