What's up everyone? Welcome back to today's episode of the Epic Gardening podcast. Today I thought you know since I spent some time in Maine over the past few days and actually a couple months ago as well I got really accustomed to the way that things are over there.

There's a fall.

Who knew?

I live in San Diego, so I don't really get much fall.

But I just was really struck by the different types of produce that are out there, the culture,

and one of those things that is really big are of course apples.

Now I probably had my fair share of dry cider, or as they call it wicked dry cider out there I don't know if I did the

accent right there but I figured you know as we move into fall it's time to learn how to pick and store our apples for the winter.

Now, before we get into how to pick apples, you kind of have to know how to harvest apples.

So here in California, apples can ripen anywhere from July through late November.

It depends on the type of tree, depends on whether it's an early season, mid season, or late season producer.

So that is something that I can't really advise on. It will depend on the type of

apple that you're growing. But before you can pick them you need to know that they are

ripe. Apples do not continue to ripen once they're picked, so you have to pick them at the right time.

The best way to test is to cut a sample apple open.

So slice it in half. Look at the seeds, if the seeds are dark brown your apple is ripe or very close to ripe, and then of course take a bite. If it's sweet and

juicy or tart and tangy for the more tart varieties, then you'll know that it's time so it should

also be crisp and firm in texture so then now that you know it's ready to be

harvested how do you pick your apples so if you're lucky and you have a dwarf tree or you're visiting an apple

orchard, it's a very simple process. All you need to do is just pick them, reach up and grab

them. But if you have a taller tree,

then you might need to grab something like a fruit picking basket.

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