Yeah, yeah... the farm is not necessarily in Albany, but it's close enough. I grew up apple picking at Masker Orchards in Warwick, NY and every other place I've been to has not matched them. If you've never been there, I urge you to go. It's great if you have little kids, and it has nice views. But enough about them... let's get back on topic.
The drive out there was wonderful, but you have to keep an eye out where you're going or you can get lost. During the rest of the growing season, they have pick your own strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, tomatoes, and pumpkins. In the main building you can pick up fresh produce and stop by the cafe for a quick bite to eat. If you're ever planning a trip to Thatcher State Park, it might not be a bad idea to stop by on your way there.
As expected, the place was busy. The set up is a little different than what I'm used to- there's one main parking lot and then you walk through the taped off path to the apples ready for picking. There is one stand for purchasing your bags (1/2 bushel bags), and compared to Maskers, it's ten bucks cheaper ($14 vs $24.95). It looks like they go with the honor system at ILF- I didn't really see any staff going around the parking area to make sure people weren't dropping apples off in the car and going back for more (I have no idea who would do that... really, what could you possibly do with all that fruit?!?)
Those incredibly bright red apples in those pictures? Isn't that fantastic? This is why I love fall. I'm pretty sure those apples are Macoun, which is a cross between a Mac and Jersey Black. It's on the sweet side, so good for regular eating. The other apples that were ripe at that time were Cortland, Liberty, Jonagold (for week 3), Honeycrisp, Gala, Mac, Jonamac (the earlier weeks). It looks like they have a really good crop this year. The apples on the trees were nice and big, and unlike last year's crop, hardly any blemishes.
A tree that looks like it had been recently cut down. That tree must have been HUGE! I can only imagine what it looked like.
If only they rented out picking poles. Then there wouldn't be pictures like this. And if you were curious, I had like half a dozen apples while we were there. And it wasn't some weaksauce two-bite chucks- I went and finished each apple. Forgot to bring the salt. Whoops.
Apple Picking @ Indian Ladder Farms from Under the Copper Tree on Vimeo.
1 comment:
great post as always! it's so cool for me to match a voice w/ a blogger
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