A morning spent apple picking
Aug 31st, 2012 by Laura Reinsborough
Today I feel that way because this morning we went apple picking at Spadina Museum. It was great to get out of the office and into the urban orchard. And, because of the long weekend, it meant that my son could come along for the fun. He had a great time picking apples – and tasting them, too!
One volunteer shared with me that she was especially keen to get her hands on some sour fruit – fruit that would bake up nicely in a pie. She’s from Germany and misses finding a larger variety of apples in the stores. Pie apples are especially hard to find.
But at Spadina Museum, with 40+ heritage fruit trees in its orchard, there are several pie apple varieties waiting to be picked, sliced, and sweetened in the oven.
As we were picking, we discovered an experiment in digitizing the urban orchard: Spadina staff hung a QR code from one of the apple trees, with a note attached about City Cider on September 16th and a link to a recipe! Very fun.
We set aside Spadina’s 1/3 in anticipation of cider-making on the 16th. We’ll see you there when you can get a taste of heritage apple cider made right in the orchard where the apples were picked.
