Sweetser's Apple Barrel and Orchards

Apple Tree Planting, April 2012

Today was another great milestone on the Sweetser Farm. We planted another six varieties of apples in the orchard, raising our total to 46 varieties. When we plant 4 more varieties from FEDCO tree company, we’ll boast 50 varieties of fresh apples. Here is Eben (6th generation), Greg (5th generation) and Dick (4th genertation) in the field on a 70 degree April day. Each of the 33 trees planted today were carefully set in the ground under Connie’s Sweetser eagle eye to insure that the rows were straight.  The hard word of running an orchard seems to result in healthy family members.

Farm Toys

The warm April days have allowed early access to the orchard and gardens. With temps reaching 70 degrees we are able to get all of the tractors out of the barn. Garden prep, transplanting blueberries, apple tree pruning are priority projects.          

  

The strawberry bed

The Strawberry bed is frost covered this morning, April 13, 2012. Time to pull weeds. Dry conditions have allowed us to till the remainder of the garden.

The apple buds are beginning to open

The buds are maturing early this year. Here we see the first tiny leaves breaking out. These hardy fruit trees can still withstand temperatures well below freezing for another couple of weeks, until the blossoms form.

Vintage Wolf River apple tree

This is the Biggest, Baddest, Apple tree in the Sweetser Orchard. And, it grows the biggest apples of any variety. A single Wolf River apple can weigh more than one pound. Last year’s beauty weighed in at 1.25 lbs. This tree awaits its spring pruning to remove the “suckers” growing staight up, but we will leave the upper brances to grow another valuable crop of these heritage apples. This is not an efficient tree to harvest, but it represents the traditional trees that dominated the apple industry for more than a century. This is a popular stop on our orchard walks.

  

 

Honey Crisp Apple Trees

Spring in the orchard is a busy time of year for pruning.  These Honey Crisp semi dwarft apple trees have been trained for several years and only require minimal pruning this spring.

Standard Size Apple Tree

Pruning the 100 year old Standard Trees is a much more complicated and time consuming process. But, these “old friends” produce such a fine tasting apple, we just have to maintain the trees. 

We’re Open Until Mid December from 10-5:30 p.m. and we want to thank our loyal customers by offering a free 1/4 peck of apples with each purchase of $10 or more!

We have 22 apple varieties in the store right now- that’s quadruple what you’ll find in the grocery store. Come stock up on apple pie favorites like the Northern Spy and try heirloom varieties like Ben Davis and Brock! The Ben Davis apples are an American variety dating back to before the Civil War whose true origins remain unknown to this day. We also have the popular Baldwin apple in stock. Bladwins are one of the oldest American heirloom varieties that date back to before the Revolutionary War when they were discovered in the 1740s in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

We now have 16 varieties of apple in the store at one time! This incredible diversity won’t last long, so stop on by to try some of these hard-to-find, old-time apples! We have rare varieties like the Nodhead and Northern Spy along with popular apples like the Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Spencer.

Manager Rommy Holman with our blue ribbon at the Cumberland Fair.

Sweetser’s won the blue ribbon for Maine Apple Orchards at the Cumberland Fair this past week. The apples progress from our oldest heirloom varieties like the Rolfe apples to the newest like Honey Crisp. We hope you stopped by the fair! You can come by the Apple Barrel seven days a week to choose from over seven varieties of heirloom and popular Fall apples.