Today is Apple Betty Day! To download and save our favorite Apple Betty recipe click HERE. We have planned to take the kids Apple Picking and also having this yummy dessert as their snack! There are actually almost a dozen long Apple themed holidays celebrated throughout the year, including National Apple Month! Originally founded in 1904 as National Apple Week, it was expanded in 1996 to a three-month promotional window from September through November. Here are a list of other apple days you might want to know:
We will come back to this blog post and post our pictures! Here are some educational tips on Apples:
Apple Holidays At-A-Glance
* January 1: Apple Gifting Day *
* May 13: National Apple Pie Day *
* June 6: National Applesauce Cake Day *
* July 5: National Apple Turnover Day *
* September 17: National Apple Dumpling Day *
* September 30: National Hot Mulled Cider Day *
* October 5: National Apple Betty Day *
* October 21: Caramel Apple Day *
* October 31: National Candy Apple Day *
* December 1: Eat A Red Apple Day *
* December 3: National Apple Pie Day *
We will come back to this blog post and post our pictures! Here are some educational tips on Apples:
- Select firm, bruise-free apples. The color can be anything from dark green, to yellow, pink, orange, bright red, dark red or even a combination. It all depends on the variety. And color is not really how you tell when an apple is ripe. Apples should be crisp and firm.
- The key will be to ask the farmer which are ripe. He will know because it is calculated from the number of days since the trees flowered. And he will track that date carefully , if he's a good apple grower!
- The farmer will also know what characteristics to look for in the particular varieties that he is growing.
- Apples ripen from the outside of the tree towards the center, so the apples out the outside of the tree will ripen first. Picking apples directly from a tree is easy. Roll the apple upwards off the branch and give a little twist; don't pull straight away from the tree. If two apples are joined together at the top, both will come away at the same time. Don't shake the trees or branches. If the apple you are trying to pick drops, (or others on the tree) go ahead and pick it up. They're perfectly fine!
- A visitor who grew up on an orchard says to try to leave the stem on the apples. He says that helped them store longer!
It's all about the variety!
Of the apple, that is. You really need to choose the type of apple that is best suited for your purpose. Apples can be suited for eating fresh, cooking, baking, applesauce, storing, etc. Here is a fairly extensive guide to apple varieties here! http://www.pickyourown.org/apples.htm
More Tips
- Once picked, don't throw the apples into the baskets, place them in gently, or they will bruise and go bad more quickly.
- Don't wash apples until just before using to prevent spoilage.
- Keep apples cool after picking to increase shelf life. A cool basement is ideal, but the fruit/vegetable drawer of a refrigerator will work, too. Kept cool, fresh-picked apples will generally keep weeks, but it DOES depend on the variety. Red and Yellow Delicious apples do not keep well, for example; but Rome, do! High humidity helps to to keep the apples from shriveling, but don't let them get actually wet. A wet towel placed nearby helps to keep the humidity up. A refrigerator is fine for small quantities of apples. Boxed apples need to be kept in a cool, dark spot where they won’t freeze. Freezing ruptures all of an apple’s cells, turning it into one large bruise overnight. The usual solution is to store apples in a root cellar. But root cellars often have potatoes in them: apples and potatoes should never be stored in the same room because, as they age, potatoes release an otherwise ethylene gas, which makes apples spoil faster. If you can keep the gas away from your apples, they will keep just fine. Just don’t store them right next to potatoes.
Prevent contact between apples stored for the winter by wrapping them individually in sheets of newspaper. The easiest way to do this is to unfold a section of newspaper all the way and tear it into quarters. Then stack the wrapped apples - Nutrition and miscellaneous facts: One-half cup of apples is only 42 calories. Apples contain no cholesterol or fat and are also low in calories. T Apples are high in dietary fiber, Vitamin A and niacin. They contain iron and other trace minerals and are a fair source of Vitamin C.
- Apples are ranked No. 1 in antioxidant activity compared with 40 other commercially available fruits and vegetables. That means a serving of apples has more of the antioxidant power you need to fight aging, cancer and heart disease.
- Put this in your pipe! Indians in the Northwest Territory smoked wild apples to preserve them for the winter. (Bet you didn't know that!)
Apple Books to Read!
Apple Fun Facts!
- 2500 varieties of apples are grown in the United States.
- 7500 varieties of apples are grown throughout the world.
- About 100 different varieties of apples are grown commercially in the United States.
- Apples are grown commercially in 36 states.
- Apples are grown in all 50 states.
- Europeans eat about 46 pounds of apples annually.
- United States consumers ate an average of 45.2 pounds of fresh apples and processed apple products. That's a lot of applesauce!
- 61 percent of United States apples are eaten as fresh fruit.
- 39 percent of apples are processed into apple products; 21 percent of this is for juice and cider.
- The top apple producing states are Washington, New York, Michigan, California, Pennsylvania and Virginia, which produced over 83 percent of the nation’s 2001-crop apple supply.
- Apples are a great source of the fiber pectin. One apple has five grams of fiber.
- In 2001 there were 8,000 apple growers with orchards covering 430,200 acres. (don't know how many of those are PYO).
- The pilgrims planted the first United States apple trees in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
- Apple trees take four to five years to produce their first fruit, but you normally buy 2 or 3 year plants at the nursery, so it's only 2 years till they produce!
- Most apples are still picked by hand in the fall.
- Did you know you can carve an apple to make a doll? Weird, but true and they look neat! See this website for how to make one yourself!
- Apple varieties range in size from a little larger than a cherry to as large as a grapefruit.
- In Europe, France, Italy and Germany are the leading apple producing countries.
- Apples are a member of the rose family.
- Apples harvested from an average tree can fill 20 bushel boxes that weigh 42 pounds each.
- 25 percent of an apple's volume is air. That is why they float.
- It takes the energy from 50 leaves to produce one apple.
- Apples are the second most valuable fruit grown in the United States. Oranges are first.
- In colonial time apples were called winter banana or melt-in-the-mouth.
- China is the leading producer of apples with over 1.2 billion bushels grown in 2001. The U.S. is number 2 and then Turkey, Poland and Italy.
- Newton Pippin apples were the first apples exported from America in 1768, some were sent to Benjamin Franklin in London.
- One of George Washington's hobbies was pruning his apple trees.
- America's longest-lived apple tree was reportedly planted in 1647 by Peter Stuyvesant in his Manhattan orchard and was still bearing fruit when a derailed train struck it in 1866.
- A bushel of apples weights about 42 pounds (up to 48 lbs) and will yield 12 to 15 quarts of applesauce.
- It takes about 36 apples to create one gallon of apple cider.
- And the many apple associations listed on this page have more facts and resources
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