Actually, I have no experience storing apples, but I’m trying to determine the best method. Remember that scene in The Road where the dad is all psyched, because he found numerous apples for his boy that kept inside some hay in a barn? You HAVE read The Road – right? They’re like making it into a movie and shit – read it now. Hell, it even made Oprah’s Book Club. How often does a TEOTWAWKI book make Oprah’s list?
Where was I? Apples – yes! We have a few older apple trees at the back of our property. The apples, because they’re not sprayed with toxic chemicals, aren’t the prettiest things ever, but they’re fully edible and actually taste OK. In the past these apples have just fallen to the ground for the deer to eat. In my quest to reduce my family’s reliance on others for our family’s food, and seeking to limit our intake of nasty chemicals that kill bugs, I figured I’d better start tapping this resource in our yard. I mean, just look at ’em:
I conducted an online search for the best storage methods for apples, but most of the results were just “cool, dry place” or “in the refrigerator’s crisper” crap. Personally, I don’t call the refrigerator a storage solution. I think of the green approach to SHTF preps, and that approach means forget electricity. To that end, the best article I found was this one from Backwoods Home Magazine.
The best method, it seems, is to wrap the apples individually in black and white newspaper (never use color). THEN store them in a cool, dark place. Some apples are better for storage than others, such as Jonathan apples. The key is they need a thick skin, which my apples have. What my apples DON’T have (which is crucial for storage) is very few imperfections, holes, etc. Remember, they’re not sprayed, so they’re not pretty. Apples in perfect shape store best. I can’t find many of those.
What I really need is an apple picker:
Sorry, I meant FRUIT Picker – yes, a Fruit Picker. One of those would help – a lot! Hint: Use the SHTFblog Amazon search bar for your Amazon shopping so I can save up for one – or just make a Paypal donation and I’ll buy one. ;-) You see, my efforts didn’t yield much – at all, and the tree isn’t all that great for climbing. See – three that met the decent qualifications, were ready, and that I could reach:
Apples apples everywhere, so few I can get to eat. I’ll let you know how long they last like that.
– Ranger Man
BTW: Do YOU have a secret apple storage technique? Tell me about it.
Also, here’s another, more developed news article on Texas teachers packing heat.
13 comments
Slice thin (1/8 to 1/4 inch) dry in a food
dehydrator, put in baggie and freeze for
longer term or refrigerator for shorter term. Return to room temp. and eat.
The Road is an excellent book—it really spoke to my apocalyptic tendencies…
My favorite way of storing apples is: apple pie filling! We made some peach pie filling out of the peaches we just canned…apples are next! Also: apple butter!
Both of the above responses are good. I mostly dry ’em and eat them that way. Just rehydrate and they can be used for cooking/ baking.
Applesauce and pie filling. Need a canner, but you probably have that all ready.
Juice, cider or AppleJack. I don’t much care for any of these, but they have been popular for centuries, so they must have something going for them.
You should try pruning one of the trees. Not all of them. Experiment first. It will help increase the size of the apples, but probably lower the number of apples. You should lower the number anyway by thinning them out when they’re small. Only 1 fruit every 6″ or so.
A dormant oil spray will help with the bug problem a lot. It’s not toxic. Some sticky traps will help too. I’m no expert, but I tried this with a couple of old trees at my last place and it made a huge improvement. You can get stupid with spraying, but a couple of oil sprays and some pruning will make a big difference. You need to spray at the right times. Also, ask the old timers around for advice. Those folks are a wealth of knowledge. Luck!
I have a bag of the dried apple slices on my refridgerator right now. They lose a little taste but they are fine. You might try the Handmaiden’s bug spray. Two tablespoons of ground Cayenne, one large onion finely diced up. One HEAD of garlic cut as small as you can do it. Bring a gallon of water to a boil, add ingredients and remove from heat immediately. Cover and letg sit for two days. Strain it and spray on your apples. Worked on my beans like a champ. Good luck!
Michael
trim the apple tree after this season and you will have more and larger apples next year.
I grew up on a small subsistence farm that produced enough to sell wide variety of products. The real key to long term storage is that not all apples are created equal. Some types are soft, some are harder. If you want to keep them over winter, or nearly so, choose hard varieties.
Michael’s spray may just be the ticket for spraying after the blossoms fall. The County Extension Agent should have a bunch of free US Gov info on Proper spraying times for your area.
Check out – http://hort.cals.cornell.edu/
They have a bunch of info and they’re up in your climate, so it may be more appropriate than some other info.
I am going to try a 5 gallon bucket of Macs with nitrogen and stored in the basement.
Applesauce in large quantities. Canned in pint jars. Not only do you not have to worry about them going bad but the taste is great.
My Pa used to just dry them on old beds (ie the wire meshy bit, not on the mattress) in the sun, not really sure how that works, why the birds dont eat them all, and why they dont just go brown and yucky instead of drying, but it seemed to work.
I’d just stick to canning or drying if you aren’t harvesting a lot of really nice apples.
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