Prepping the Fruit Trees for Spring

It's time to start getting ready for growing season and our apples trees needed some serious TLC!

Here's a good website that provides some suggestions
http://www.diylife.com/2011/02/23/pruning-apple-trees/

Here's what we started with....

It's hard to tell in the photo but the tree is very overgrown and has way too many branches. The last few years we struggled with fungus on our apples. The fruit needs air and light to grow healthy and to help prevent disease. As you can see, our apples were not getting much air or light!
This is a picture of one of our trees at the end of last season.


Step one--get the right tools. "For smaller trees and detailed pruning, they use pruning loppers, hand shears, and a hand saw" CHECK!



Step two--Start cutting
1. Always start with the big cuts first and then move to more detailed pruning
2. You want the bottom branches to be longer than the top branches
3. And you don't want any branches growing straight up or down, which can create structural issues
4. You want the branches at a 45 degree angle off of the trunk, which will be strong
5. Eliminate the little suckers
6. Remove dead limbs
7. Don't take out more than 30% of the live growth. This will hurt production!
8. Step back and assess your work to determine if your done.

The website also had a helpful video http://www.diylife.com/videos-partner/how-to-prune-trees-516921798-79

Step three--Clean up


Final product
Hopefully you can see the difference!

Much more airy!

Look at all the branches we removed!

Happy Halloween!

Here's some pictures of my pumpkin for this year...





We had our annual bonfire at the neighbors house last night. Hot dogs roasted over the fire, s'mores, lot of jack-o-lanterns, and just a few trick-or-treaters.

I thought it was time for a few fall recipes. Here's a delicious pumpkin butter recipe that is great on biscuits or toast.

Pumpkin Butter
2 (15-ounce) cans of canned pumpkin or about 4 cups of fresh-- I used fresh
1 1/4 cups maple syrup
1/2 cup apple juice
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground ginger -- I'm not a fan of ginger so I left this out
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

Put all the ingredients in a crock pot and cook on low for 5-6 hours. I would probably do 6-7 to make it a bit thicker next time. Stays good in the fridge for 1-2 weeks and then you can freeze whatever you haven't eaten yet.

Adapted from: http://bakedbree.com/slow-cooker-pumpkin-butter



Another great fall recipe is Apple Cinnamon Bread.

Apple Cinnamon Bread (http://twopeasandtheirpod.com/apple-cinnamon-bread/)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon all spice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 large eggs
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup granulated sugar
2 cups chopped apples, skin removed

Topping:
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray an 8 by 4 loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, all spice, and cloves. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the eggs and beat on medium speed for about 30 seconds. Add in oil, applesauce, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Next, add the sugar and mix until well combined.

4. Slowly add in the flour mixture and mix until flour is barely combined. Gently fold in the apple chunks. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.



5. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, sugar, and cinnamon. Sprinkle over the batter in the loaf pan.

Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until loaf is golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Cool bread in pan for 10 minutes. Loosen sides and remove from pan. Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.



ENJOY!

Apples, Apples, Apples

Fall is definitely in the air! We picked the apples from our tree last weekend (one of our trees lost all of its fruit this spring...sad! But we had plenty of apples from the one tree!).





Dad picking...


Mom picking...

By the way, I'll be spending the whole weekend with my mom so there will be lots of great opportunities for Deb quotes...I'll post them next week!

Our abundance of apples...


Since picking the apples we've made and canned applesauce, eaten apple crisp, had apple cinnamon pancakes, and snacked on an apple daily. You'd think I'd be over it already but you'd be wrong! I'll post recipes next week!

Happy Birthday America!

Happy (late) Fourth of July!

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday! I had a nice 4-day weekend which I spent playing outside and relaxing with family and friends. On the Forth, we went to a cookout with some friends who were in town for the weekend. I decided to make a yummy, light, patriotic treat. I saw this idea online somewhere and thought it would be perfect....Red, White, and Blue Strawberries



First you need to clean and dry your strawberries (if they're wet, the chocolate won't stick correctly).



Then you need to melt your white chocolate. I used little baking chips and melted them in a bowl in the microwave. Make sure you stop every 20-30 seconds to stir the chocolate. Also, make sure you don't over cook it!



Next, dip the strawberries into the chocolate so that it covers 2/3 of the berry. Then let some of the excess chocolate drip off (or if you're impatient like me, you can scrape some of it off with a spoon...too much chocolate makes the sprinkles look weird). After you've dipped the strawberries in chocolate, dip the bottom 1/3 in blue sanding sugar.










Finally, let the strawberries dry on foil and then ENJOY! I would recommend making these the same day that you plan to serve them. Since the strawberries sweat, the blue sugar starts to run and can cause a mess...although their still good!



And as a side note, here's a picture of my Aunt Mary and my dad picking transparent apples at a friends house. My Aunt Mary was complaining because there were no pictures of her on here...now there is! She made some delicious applesauce with these apples!