Autumn always feel busy, the nights draw in, making the days feel shorter, yet somehow there is more to do than ever.
I do love this gathering in of crops though. And I know the more energy I put in to it now, the more benefit we'll have for the rest of the year.
This year we're very much trying ot store as many apples as we can.
Middlest takes a little pot of apples with her to school every day as her snack. Obviously this is something I'm keen to promote, as it's healthy and good for her, as well as being homemade.
But it does mean we'll probably have to dehydrate 300 - 500 apples this autumn. The dehydrator will hold about 25 - 30 each time, so it needs to go on a few times yet. My daughter is keen to help though and it's been nice to sit with her each night as we peel, slice and core apples to put on the trays to dry. We watch a few YouTube videos or just chat, it' been lovely to be honest.
Each batch takes about 24 hours to dry fully (at 57degrees), I like them dried to a crisp, so they snap.
No doubt we'll soon be running out of jars again - or space to put them! I need to build some more shelves really.
Who else dries apples each year?
We have been chatting about having a dwarf apple tree, but it would need to go in a huge pot, I think the cost is going to put me off, just no space in our small garden to plan a tree.
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