The Orchard: Blessing or Burden?

    The apples are ripe again. As are the pomegranates. As with many blessings…. the orchard comes with responsibility. 

I did not plant it, plan it, or raise it- but I do get to benefit from it, and I am increasingly responsible for it. 

One of the primary issues with fruit from the orchard, is that it all ripens within a few weeks or days of itself, and it is far more than we can possibly eat, or sometimes even pick, before it spoils. We have apricots, pears, grapes, apples, pomegranates, persimmons, and cherries. Every year, we are faced with the task of finding some way to preserve, give away, harvest, and store the bounty of the orchard.

Sugar is also another real issue with orchard fruit. Fruit is super-healthy, but eaten in large quantities (unless you are incredibly active and have a fast metabolism) will make you very fat, and give you tummy troubles. Dried fruit requires particular caution. Many people make preserves, but this also requires adding white sugar, which is not great for my family's waist-line. I have tried water-packing different fruits without sugar, but this is again, time, and effort, and the results vary. Freezing the fruit works well for some fruits (figs and apricots)- but don’t freeze apples or pears. They get all mealy. 

Storing the fruit saves us money in the long run, but it costs time and effort (which is a rare commodity in my life,) and storage space (which is, of course, limited.) 

 My in-laws planted the orchard, and they planted enough fruit trees to feed a small army. They used to do most of the harvesting, and they still do a great deal of it, but as they have gotten older, it’s fallen to me. If I don’t use it, the birds get all the fruit and the rest simply gets wasted. 

The orchard can be stressful- Sometimes it’s a blessing; sometimes it’s a burden. 

Have you ever had an apricot tree? Then you understand. Imagine if you had 3. 

So the apples are ripe again. We didn’t get a great deal this year, but still more than we can possibly eat over the next few weeks. I sent the children out with bowls and asked them to collect as many as they could. And I researched how to store them. In the past, I’ve made huge amounts of applesauce in the crockpot. This is delicious…. But my children do not think so. 

This year I decided to try cold storing them. Fortunately, according to my 1977 Stocking Up, by Rodale Press, apples save better than any other fruit in cold storage. Unfortunately, I would need a root cellar, adjoining garage, or cold room that stayed at roughly 40 degrees from fall to spring to store them. Rodale even provided me with handy diagrams of how I could build my own root cellar or fancy dirt hole in the ground itself. 

 We have many wonderful things on our property, but a root cellar is not one of them. We don’t even have an adjoining garage. And as awesome as it sounds to build our own cold storage, I don’t foresee that happening anytime while the children live here. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. A little googling revealed that I could probably just stick the best of the apples (no bruises or cuts) wrapped in paper, in a cardboard box in my pantry, and they would keep for a few months. That is long enough for us. And I shouldn’t have to buy apples from the store for a few weeks at least. 

 Olive Update: Last week, we began salt-curing our small crop of olives. A week has passed and they are getting pleasantly shriveled. Every day I stir the olives, add a little more salt and drain off the liquid, which smells musty and earthy, and kind of like, well, olives. 

 Like having many children, the orchard is a blessing, even if it's time-consuming and messy! 

And if I am clever enough, industrious enough, and observant enough, it blesses my family. 

So I do thank God for the orchard and my in-laws who planted it. 

We let some of it go to waste this year….but next year….next year we’ll save it all! 

What do you think? Prolific Orchard- Blessing or Burden?