Another apple is ripe!

The Smoothies are ready!

They are a type of Golden Delicious but have a pink huey.  I always look forward to these each year too.  They have a super crunch to them.  Mild but sweet.  They are a great all-purpose apple.

I have also heard them called Supreme Gold.

You will find these a little less than halfway down on the south half of the orchard.  Walk down the row until you see a white sign that says Smoothie.  

Also, we are sold out of pears, but have lots of Gala and Honeycrisp still.

 

This last weekend we started harvesting our first flower seed crop.  Below is a picture of the Coreopsis head containing the seeds.

 

And here is the seed out of the head.

And here is looking under the swathed rows looking to see how much has shattered off when we cut it. 

 

We ended up having to harvest differently than I talked about in a earlier blog post.  Instead of cutting and sending it straight into the back of the combine, we had to swath it, then later go through with the combine.  Even though the seed heads were dry enough, the stems from the plants were still wet enough that they would have wrapped around the "wheat" header and we would have gotten nowhere.   

 

 It took three days to harvest the Coreopsis.  Longer than we thought but thankfully we got it done before the rain Monday morning.  We had problems with the combine plugging many times so it slowed us down a little.

We also filled the combine bin full of seed and it would not come out the shoot to dump it into a truck!  So we started shoveling it out!  That was a little daunting but it wasn't so bad.  After that we would just harvest 2 rows and then unload the seed.  My dad always says if you don't fail every once in awhile then you aren't trying hard enough!!  We will claim that saying on this experience.  Ha!

A family out and about picking.  The little girls were so cute with their little buckets for apples!

 

Also want to introduce Laura, one of our newest apple employees!  And her sweet daughter Ruby!  She can help you with anything you need.

We are also getting ready to plant 2.5 acres of blueberries.  Finally finishing the field out.  Right now we are making the beds and adding the sawdust.  Next we put in the overheard sprinklers and then finally plant the plants.   

Well, off to get some more work done!

Honeycrisp are ready!!!

What you all have been waiting for....Honeycrisp are now ready!!!

We thinned hard this spring so all the Honeycrisp are a nice size this year.  You will love them! 
Our newest row of Honeycrisp is extra great.  It has the biggest and most red apples on it.  I'm sure they will be the first to be picked.  They are beautiful!!!

Really all the apples this year are great.  It is a fantastic apple year.  My grandpa did a wonderful job tending to them this year.  He always does, but between him and the weather working together, he did an extra good job. 

As for the rest of the farm, we are still working away on getting our other crops harvested. 

We just finished up blueberries.  We had Salem Harvest come out 2 different days to help clean up two of our fields.  One field they were able to donate over 900# and the other over 300#.  As usual, they did an amazing job of organizing their volunteers and treating our fields with the utmost respect.

Our radish seed, was swathed (cut and laid into rows) over the weekend.  It has to lay to dry out for awhile before we can come through with the combine.  The long bout of dry weather has been great.  Taken stress off by not having to worry about weather issues.

Two of our flower seed fields are being sprayed right now.  It is a strange concept, but after the bloom is mostly gone, you spray over the field with weed killer.  It helps stop the green growth of the plant but doesn't harm the seed heads.  It actually allows us to harvest sooner.  And instead of having to swath it, where we would risk much of the seeds shattering onto the ground when we later come through with the combine, we just come through with our combine with a wheat header.  A wheat header is different because it cuts the crop and picks it up at the same time.  I am not sure if this is making sense.  I don't know about you but I am a visual person.  I hope when we go to harvest the flowers, I will get some pictures for you all.  So stay posted.  There is another way to harvest flowers too but maybe I can get into that another year if we end up trying it!

And the only other crop left to talk about is the corn!  The corn just got topped over the weekend, so it shouldn't be too long until it is harvested.  I haven't actually heard when.

So that is our farm happenings in a nutshell.  Pretty soon it will be time to plan for next year!

Bartlett Pears -- Pre-Picked!

Still have plenty of Gala and Ruby Macs!

The Galas are especially beautiful this year.  We worked hard at thinning so they are a really nice larger size!

We also have lots of pre-picked Bartlett Pears we are selling.

$11 for a 5 gallon bucket.

$5 for the smaller bucket.

We also do pre-picked apple. ($11 per bucket instead of $9)
Just call ahead or email snofarmer@gmail.com and we can do that for you.  If you need a large amount pre-picked, give us at least a day's notice.  If it is just a few buckets, just drop in and we'll go running! :)

Come out this weekend!  So thankful for the beautiful weather.