So last Friday morning Vicki and I loaded up my Suburban and we went on a quest for roadside apples. In years gone by every farm in Sullivan county had apple trees and many can still be found along the country roads throughout the county today. Normally you drive by them and never even give them a second thought. But we drove some backroads from Eldred to Roscoe and back again collecting bushels of fruit, in a trip that took about five hours. 

Some of you saw me out there as you stopped to say hi and wonder what the dickins I was doing. There were plenty of unwanted apples on trees that haven’t been maintained in probably over half a century. Now these apples are not going to win any beauty contests, but for making apple cider they are perfect. 

We started processing Sunday morning with one bushel of apples. Vicki first washed and cleaned the apples, then she put them through the food processor to chop them to bits. I then put the mash in a small cider press and by the time we were done we had 3 and a half gallons of apple cider.

This was actually a lot more than I thought we would get, but because the apples were way smaller than you would see in the store, there was much more fruit per bushel. Now before you say WOW, this took three hours to do just processing one bushel. So unless you have the time to do it, buy cider at the store. 

But we are retired now and have some time to do these things. Also with fresh pressed cider, if you age it for awhile it becomes hard cider, which is how it was done in the old days before all the fancy equipment. Even though the apples were washed and cleaned, there are still natural yeasts on the skins that will start fermenting the cider. If not refrigerated, this will start almost immediately. There are thousands of old apple trees throughout the county that no one picks anymore. Many have no fruit on them at all since there is no one to take care of them. Fruit trees need annual pruning and fertilizing to fruit at their peak. 

About one out of ten roadside apple trees had any fruit and only about one in twenty had any amount worth stopping for. The apples will be small so they are not a good choice for apple pie or even apple sauce as both require the apples to be peeled and that would take forever with fruit this small. 

Most of the apples were the size of a sugar plum. But if you are just looking for some cider apples, there are plenty out there you just need to know where to look. Take a ride this weekend and while leaf peeping make notes for next year where the best trees are. Another plant I noted while out on my apple quest was asparagus patches along the road. So I might make a trip next spring for some fresh asparagus before the county mows for the first time on the roadside.