We have some early apples at the farm stand!
Please see below – no Pick-Your-Own apples this year, unfortunately.
A couple of upcoming farm events – we hope you can join us:
FIRST, Saturday Sept. 23rd, Hermit Woods Winery will be hosting a tasting event!!! Come enjoy their fabulous drinks!!
SECOND, Saturday Sept. 30th, the NH Draft Horse Association will be demonstrating their horses (and possibly their mules too!!!) Should be a lot of fun – bring the kids and enjoy the day at the farm!
The farm stand is open daily from 8:30am to 5:30pm. We are busy baking in our kitchen so the stand is full of fresh pies, cookies, jams, etc. We have lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and zucchini too – perfect time to do some canning for those winter months!
And a big CONGRATULATIONS to Chuck and Diane for winning the 2023 Agricultural Adventures Award, sponsored by the Eastern States Exposition!! The formal award will be given to them at the Big E on Friday, Sept. 22!!! So proud of them!!
We do have bad news for our upcoming season apples…..
OK time to talk about the 500 lb. gorilla in the room, losing anything that means so much to you it has taken us a bit of time to get to a point where we are comfortable talking about it. Our peach and apple crops for this year were lost due to two different cold weather events. That is right, there are neither peaches nor apples on our trees this year.
On May 17th, 18th the apple trees were in bloom and another cold weather event occurred. A record was set in Concord for both low temperatures and the duration of below freezing temperatures. The wind machine was run for a total of 9 hours but there was no temperature inversion for it to work as designed, a low of 27 degrees was recorded at the farm stand, too cold for the blossoms and the just formed fruitlets. Bottom line there a very few apples to be found on our trees, we estimate a 99% loss.
We are not alone as many orchards in central NH, VT, northeaster Massachusetts and Maine we similarly affected. Some may have a limited Pick Your Own season, but many like us will not be able to have Pick Your Own in 2023.
So, what now? Our number one business philosophy has always been to build relationships with our customers, our employees, fellow farmers and others like suppliers, and providers of the many things that we require at the farm. As we steered away from traditional wholesale markets for our fruit, we concentrated on selling apples to other farms that may have wanted varieties that we grow or had a shortfall in their crop. 2023 is the year that we will be relying on those relationships to provide us with apples and peaches for our farm stand. This is somewhat uncharted territory for us, but we will do our best.
Our fellow apple growers that we have sold apples to in past years will be providing us with apples. Dowse Orchards, in Massachusetts, Kelly Orchards and Ricker Hill Farm in Maine and possibly McKenzie’s Farm in Milton NH. And we will do our best to keep our relationships with customers at the highest level. Please let us know if you have any questions, we will be honest and up front as always. 2023 will be a work in progress and we anticipate changes in our plans as we go forward. We are already planning for 2024 and hope that it will be a bit kinder to us. Thank you for your support and for choosing Apple Hill Farm.
Chuck, Diane, and the farm crew at Apple Hill Farm
