Picking apples

We have opened the season for harvesting apples! Some apple trees are ripe earlier, others later - it depends on their variety. Vecmamma is always careful about picking the apples on time, because she has a huge cellar in the garden, where she keeps the fresh apples all winter long. How do you know, when the apples are ready to be picked? You have to cut them open to see the seeds - if the seeds are not white any more but are starting to turn brown, they are ready to be picked. When the seeds turn completely brown, they are full ripe - such apples can't be preserved for long any more.

Great care has to be taken also when picking the apples from the tree. The apples will be preserved best, if they don't have any worms in them and don't get damaged in any way - for example, by falling to the ground and getting hit. In the places, where apples get hit, they start to rot very soon.

Uzair was happy this year to be able to pick the apples by climbing on the ladder all by himself. He put up the ladder, climbed it with a bucket in his hand, and was picking the apples directly from the tree, placing them carefully one by one into the bucket, taking care not to damage them. When the bucket was full, he was passing it to Vecmamma, who emptied it into the plastic boxes, where they will be stored for several months, placed in the cellar.

Mamma and Hafsa were working on the very high branches of the tree, which Uzair could not reach with his ladder. Mamma had a special long stick (about 2 m long) with a small basket on the top, in which she gathered the apples from high up branches. Then, she lowered it to Hafsa, who took the apples out and placed them carefully into the bucket.

Picking apples was so much fun! And this was only the first of Vecmamma's eight apples trees to be picked. We cannot wait to work on the others! :)