Ever blooming

The apple blossoms on this branch will never fade or fall, because they are made of glass. ¶ (Photo:

Made of glass.) ¶ 

Ding a ding, ding

A wasp helps to bring an apple into the world at Nagog Farm in Littleton, Massachusetts, earlier today.

Pollinator, lad and lass,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

That o’er the orchard green did pass,

In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When bees do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

So fade the blooms of spring

Only a few apple blossoms remain on the trees at Hutchins Farm in Concord, Massachusetts, yesterday. ¶ 

This photo bookends last week's image of an early blossom. ¶ 

The 90-degree weather in the forecast here will surely wring out any that remain. ¶ 

And they're off!

The starting gun sounds for the 2022 apple season at Hutchins Farm in Concord, Massachusetts, yesterday.

Drink your fruit: Yarlington Mill cider

This review is missing an apple. ¶ 

My other tastings of ciders in the Rare Apple Series from cider maker Stormalong feature photos of beverage and nameplate fruit. ¶ 

Alas, I lack a Yarlington Mill apple to include in the family group. Indeed, I have never tasted that variety. ¶ 

The cider pours a lovely orange-tinted gold that is pleasantly effervescent. There are fruit and tannins in the nose and mouth. ¶ 

Bittersweet view

i'm moving

Many, and probably most, of the photos I've published here over the years have shown apples from this vantage point. ¶ 

It's the back railing of my porch, with my backyard in the background. ¶ 

Take a last look, because I no longer live here.

Apples have evolved to be sweet and big

 

Researchers tracking the evolution of apples over the years have discovered that modern-day varieties are 3.6 times heavier, about half as acidic, and far less bitter than the wild ancestral species (much like crab apples) from which modern apples are derived.

I was going to put on my science reporter hat and describe this research, from scientists at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.

More quick bites

Do you miss the harvest? Have some reading. 

Drink your fruit: Winesap Cider

Stormalong, the Massachusetts cider maker, names each in its Rare Apple Series after one of the apples used to make the drink.

My idea to photograph the named apple with the cider is more playful than anything else, especially since most of these are blends of perhaps a half dozen different varieties.

Today's beverage, however, is a single varietal, one hundred percent Stayman Winesap. And that is a Stayman posing with the family group. 

Let's quaff.

The lab and the orchard

Genetic analyses get cheaper and more powerful every year, busting myths and providing information about the lineage of apple cultivars.

Honeycrisp, to cite a notorious example, is not a Macoun x Honeygold cross, as breeding records from the 1960s suggested.

It is rather Keepsake x MN1627 (the latter an uncommercialized variety that has not survived).

A taste of things to sun

Apple trees bask in unseasonably warm February sun at Hutchins Farm in Concord, Massachusetts, earlier today.