Apple Picking and Grape Picking

You guys know that I'm a very excitable free shopper, but I feel that I did exceptionally well with this one. On craigslist (for my city) a friend and I found some people offering the fruit from their trees to anyone who wanted to pick. The best part was that it was FREE! All they asked is that you come pick your own. Well, a little work never hurt anyone, so with a few friends in tow, we went apple picking.

We borrowed an apple picker, which is a long pole with a wire basket on the top and tines to pull the apples into said basket. It was a huge help. At the first place, the only thing we could use was the apple picker. Oh, and some creative picking. I tossed a friend onto the roof of the shed (which the apple tree is over) and she grabbed the mostly unharmed apples from the roof. She filled a bag or two for us and a bag or two for a lady who had come without the benefit of a picker.

As we finished there, another post went up and we drove to another house with trees. These were low hanging and FULL of fruit. All told, we ended up with just over 200lbs of apples! A few days later, someone offered their grape vines for picking and we got FOUR reusable grocery bags full of grapes.

So... here's what we made and what we learned.

• A 12 quart stockpot will make about 4 quarts of apple sauce (or apple butter).
• 200lbs of apples might just be too much for an apartment
• Freezing in ziplock bags will save you money over mason jars in a pinch
• We were in over our head with the grapes. My jelly didn't set up and they are a pain to process, but fresh grape juice is delicious.
• Apple butter and apple sauce are both VERY easy to make. I'll put instructions in the next post.
  
• Grape jelly that doesn't set up can be watered down into very toddler friendly juice. Just mix one part liquid non-jelly into 5 parts water. That means that two quarts of failed jelly were turned into three gallons of awesome toddler grape-drink.
• Fresh raisins made in a dehydrator are great. Fresh raisins made from seeded grapes are crunchy.
• Apple pie filling is an amazing thing to have on hand, and very easy to make and freeze.
• The fabric diapers that come 5 or 6 to a pack (not the thick ones) are a great substitute for cheese cloth.
• Toddlers will steal fresh fruit given the chance. Our apple bucket regularly had a toddler hand in it to grab a piece of apple.
• Be patient with processing fruit.
  
• Get an apple peeler/corer/slicer. I cannot stress this enough.
• Men will help in the kitchen if you give them a masculine hand tool or a knife.
• Preparing and preserving food is a family thing. Get everyone involved.
• Stock up on cinammon, nutmeg, and allspice if you process apples in bulk

All told, it was a fun experience. I already knew how to process the apples and what to expect, but the grapes were new to me.