The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Business

October 31, 2009

Spring takes a bite out of apples

Pa. crop smaller, but time still ripe

GIRARD, Pa. — Despite all of this year’s wet weather, there will still be autumn days when the rain stops.

The sun will shine down on the apple trees. The leaves and puddles will dry up and apple lovers will pile into their cars in search of the harvest season.

Cold spring weather hampered apple production in northwestern Pennsylvania this year, but tens of thousands of red and yellow globes still beckon.

They await robes of caramel, promise pies and fresh applesauce, accept their fates as fodder for bobbing barrels and cider presses.

“We still have good apples,’’ said Bruce Boyce, owner of Boyce Fruit Farm and Cider Mills in Girard, Pa., near Lake Erie about 10 miles southwest of Erie and 100 miles north of Pittsburgh. “It’s a good chance for families to come out.’’

Boyce has Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Empires waiting for good homes. His Macintosh and Cortland varieties are gone, but he cranked up his 100-year-old cider press Sept. 10 all the same, with plans to make cider well into November.

If you get there on the right day, you can see Boyce’s cider press rattle and roar, convincing apples to give up their juice under 2,000 pounds of might. After a bit, the press falls nearly silent. Roughly 60 gallons of apple juice drips and settles into a tank. Soon, Boyce can fill a gallon jug from a tap on the other side of the wall, just inside the farm store.

He said the press can make about 500 gallons of cider a day, which adds up to 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of sweet brown juice per year.

Drink it cold, hot, mulled, reduced or spiked. Just drink it soon. For orchards, it’s been a rough 2009 apple season.

Boyce said he doesn’t think his regulars will be deterred by the small apple crop. For many, he said, picking apples there is as much a part of fall as watching the leaves turn.

Case in point: Don Draves, originally from Conneaut, Ohio, now a resident of Florida, who makes his way to Boyce’s farm every year to pick apples with his wife, Mary Draves.

This time, the Draves, along with their friend Joyce Stasko, filled two big boxes of Golden Delicious apples in 15 minutes.

Stasko said she uses the apples to eat, as well as to make pies, applesauce and apple butter.

The trip isn’t just about the food. It’s the taste, the smell, the air and the satisfying snap as apple stems let go of their branches.

“It’s just fun to get outdoors,’’ Don Draves said. “It’s not hard work. You have to be careful of the bees, but that's no big deal.’’

He didn’t wait to taste the merchandise. “I like to eat when I pick. You have to have a sample,’’ he said with a laugh.

Mike Schultz, owner of Arundale Farm and Cider Mill, opened his mill Sept. 18. He said he's usually open through November. But this year's crop is short, due to a May freeze — May 18, to be exact, as Schultz knows by heart.

He’s thinking he’ll have to close up at the end of October. For now, though, he has a barn full of Macintosh, Cortland, Empire, Ida Red and Mutsus looking for good homes.

In Erie, residents can also get cider at Frank’s Farm Market, where a cider press is in use every day until Christmas, said owner Becky Ferrick. Frank’s doesn’t grow its own apples, but Ferrick said she hasn't had any trouble getting what she needs for pressing.

“We have plenty of apples,’’ Ferrick said.

Boyce said he lost 80 percent of his fruit to the freeze, making this the worst apple crop since he started working on the farm in 1971.

That said, you can still load up the car with your family and bring home some fruit.

“It’s a lot different from just going into a grocery store,’’ Boyce said.

Glenn Ruhl, who works with Boyce, said he isn’t worried about a slow turnout, and that people are looking for fun closer to home.

“Once the cider gets going, they start coming,’’ he said.

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