New York State Apple Farmers Are Not All Happy Campers this Year
It was a grey day but none the less, there was an enthusiastic turnout for the Hudson Valley Apple Festival, held in Germantown, New York for the first time this year.
Although I did the obligatory journalistic research to identify the organizers of the Festival, I found out very little other than that they received terrific sponsorship from local businesses.
There was an awesome little hay maze, arts and crafts vendors, pumpkin and apple themed games, and even a small farmer’s market. I visited a sponsor’s booth (the only business booths allowed) of the local radio station, spun the wheel and won a tee-shirt! We oggled at the old cars before procuring candy apples, snapping the pics below and dashing off.
Which led me to reflect and remember; wasn’t this a really bad year for apple farmers? And yes it was, starting with a late spring frost that damaged up to 70% of fruit and was the worst since 1955, and ending the bombarding hale that damaged more of the surviving crop.
I love that the Don Baker Farm sold “ugly”(hailstorm pocked) fruit – though steeply discounted. The June hailstorm took a hit and miss approach, and according to the Farm’s website, Don Baker’s entire crop was obliterated, though other fruit farmer’s in Columbia County were hardly impacted.
So if Apple Festivals stir the public’s imagination for the harvest, then the harvest must be had, and at a steeper price this year because of the inevitable shortage of apples. Lets just hope for less extreme weather during the next growing season.
