Cheap, tasty apples
The best way to get good apples is to grow them yourself. We're getting there, but it takes time.
The second best way would
be to team up with a farmer whose tastes and growing philosophy mesh
with your own and pick your apples from his orchard. Or buy his apples at a farmer's market. I wish I'd gotten more than half a bushel of those delectable Winesaps, but I'm afraid they're all gone now.
Third best is to find a
fruit stand that sells semi-local apples by the bushel. While
these are never quite as delectable as homegrown, they're much tastier
(and cheaper) than store-bought. The Bureau of Labor Statistics
says Red Delicious apples averaged $1.41/pound in September. In
contrast, the going rate for a bushel of Winesaps in our area seems to
be about $24, or 50 cents a pound. (And they taste vastly better
than Red Delicious.)
We couldn't eat a bushel of apples before they go soft if we kept them in the house, but the fridge root cellar
has room between baskets of carrots to keep apples crisp. They
say not to store apples with potatoes, but my carrots don't seem to mind
the ethylene-producing neighbors.
What do you stock up on from the fruit stand to keep your winter meals cheap and tasty?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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