Crab Grab

Today's adventure: picking crab apples! We visited just two spots, about 10-12 individual trees, and hauled back in the Croozer a whopping 35 1/2 pounds of deep red fruit ranging in size from cherry to golf ball.

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There are still some crab apple trees not quite ready to be picked—you can tell by the lack of fruit on the ground below them. The trees we visited today were at the perfect stage. They had dropped many crab apples on the ground (but not so many that you have to walk through a bee-infested sludge of rotting fruit)—which means the apples are ripe—while plenty of apples remained in the tree—which means they're not overripe yet.

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Len got on the stepladder and picked from the tree, and I mostly inspected the apples on the ground, bagging the ones that were not smashed, bruised or bug-bitten. Of course, we ate one while we were out—have to taste the product at every stage! These larger crab apples are tart but not bitter, like a Granny Smith but redder, if red can be a flavor.
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And now, it's jam time! Expect a post about the crab apple jam soon.

.Rinsing the crab apples - this is a 16-lb. batch.