Collect Windfall Apples

Reader Contribution by Heidi Hunt
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Photo by SuperND/Fotolia

A time-honored tradition for country folk is harvesting wild foods, such as fiddle-head ferns in the spring. But sometimes, on the edges of former homesteads, you can find semi-wild foods (or food that has gone wild!), such as apples.

Pioneers and homesteaders have been planting apple trees since Plymouth days. Apples are a wonderfully versatile fruit; they can be stored for months and used as is, or transformed into cider, sauce, and dried apples for pies and cobblers. Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) spent much of his life in the late 1700 and early 1800s planting apple nurseries, primarily in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. It is said that some of those trees are still bearing apples.

But you don’t have to go to those states to find free-for-the-asking apples. Just by taking an autumn drive in the country, you will probably find an old farmstead with an apple tree or two loaded with apples, ready to become deer and bear fodder. Before picking, always try to find who owns the trees and if it is OK to pick the apples. You also might find trees, full of ripe apples, in your neighbor’s. They may be thrilled to have someone pick them rather than having to deal with rotting apples in the grass.

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