The orchard, year two

We’re continuing to build the orchard this year, adding four more apple trees and 3 cherry trees.

The apple varieties for this year are:
Northern Spy
Wickson Crab
Newtown Pippin
Golden Russet

Most have multiple uses, but the primary purpose of these is to provide blending options for hard and sweet cider. Despite the tough skin, I really like the taste of the various Russets I’ve tried. Northern Spy is quite nice as well, although it takes a long time to start fruiting. Once it does though, these trees can last 100 or more years if they take off and find a good growing environment.

The cherries we got are some basic sour varieties:
Morello
Montmorency

There are a couple reasons we want cherries. Besides the obvious use in pies, we also like making our own maraschino cherries for Manhattans, Old Fashioneds, etc and eventually I would like to try using cherries in sour beers. We are also getting a sweet cherry separately from a local nursery that is a bit older and should start bearing a little sooner. That will be mainly for fresh eating and juice.