Farmers Forum staff
CORNWALL — Heading into September, Eastern Ontario orchards reported a good crop of nice-sized apples.
“It’s looking like a nice crop,” said Diane Lunan, co-owner of Marlin Orchards & Garden Centre in Cornwall, though she didn’t want to “jinx” it by sounding overconfident before all the apples were picked and stored safely in the farm’s refrigerated coolers.
“There’s still a lot of Mother Nature’s power to come,” Lunan pointed out.
The harvest of Paula Red and Gravenstein apples was well underway by late August at the Marlin operation, which Lunan runs with her husband, George, and their three adult children. Gingergolds and Lobos were scheduled to come off next. They grow 35 varieties, and despite some minor frost damage in May, “there’s lots to harvest,” she said. Most apples are “sizing up very, very nicely,” she added.
Colin Campbell said that apple yields at his Prince Edward County operation — Campbell’s Orchard & Country Market — seemed about average. The operation grows 25 apple varieties, and the crop “looks pretty good, he added. “The apples have a nice big size and look pretty clean, and we’ve avoided any hail storms. The Honeycrisp are spectacular.”
At Dentz Orchards & Berry Farm, co-owner Cathy Dentz reported “way more apples” on the trees this year, compared with last year’s weaker harvest. “This year is a really good one for us again,” she said. That’s particularly true for Honeycrisp apples, the biggest single apple crop at the Iroquois-area farm.
