Canning Applesauce from the Last of the Apple Harvest

The last dozen or so apples from my Fuji apple tree found their way into some yummy applesauce today. I sort of ad-libbed the recipe this time, but the result was great.

Last night I washed, cored and quartered 12 to 14 apples and put them in my 6-quart crockpot with 1 cup of apple juice, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, and 1 heaping teaspoon of cinnamon. I set it on Low and let it cook, covered, for 12 hours. This morning I turned off the heat and ran the cooked apple mixture through a food mill to remove the peels. (Don't peel the apples in advance--there's pectin in the peels that helps to thicken and flavor the applesauce.) The apple mixture was a little watery at that point so I put the apple mixture back in the crockpot, set it on High, and let it cook uncovered for another hour or so to thicken up. From this, I was able to get three and a half pints of canned applesauce.

I can't wait to try this applesauce alongside a pork chop or mixed into oatmeal. For just a couple hours of hands-on work, it will totally be worth it!

Fuji Apple Butter Crockpot Recipe

This is the first year that my Fuji apple tree has had a significant harvest, especially considering that the young tree is still not quite 6 feet tall. When I had picked over three dozen apples (and still left some small ones to develop more on the tree) I decided to do some canning and began looking for some good recipes. I decided to make apple butter, because it's tasty, fat-free, and easy--only six ingredients and it can be prepared in a crockpot. This recipe is adapted from the Rival Crock-Pot Cooking book that came with my crockpot many years ago. The only thing I changed was the variety of apple used.

Old-Fashioned Apple Butter

12 - 14 apples (the book suggested Jonathan or Winesap; I used Fuji)
2 cups apple juice (I used apple cider)
Sugar
Cinnamon (ground)
Allspice 
Cloves (ground)
(The book also listed an optional ingredient--1/2 cup sauterne--which I didn't use)

In addition, you will need a large crockpot and a food mill.

I used 14 Fuji apples of varying sizes. I washed, cored, and quartered them and put them in the crockpot, which I sprayed with a light coating of oil, along with 2 cups apple cider. I covered them and cooked on Low for 10 to 18 hours. (I cooked it overnight, 18 hours).

The next morning I ran the cooked apples through a food mill to remove the peels. (You don't want to remove the peel before cooking because there is a good amount of pectin in the peel that helps thicken the apple butter.) Measure the apple mixture and return it to the crockpot. I had 10 cups of cooked apples at this point. For every 2 cups of sieved, cooked apples, add 1 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of allspice, and 1/2 teaspoon of cloves. So, for my 10 cups of apples, I added 5 cups of sugar, 5 teaspoons of cinnamon, and 2 1/2 teaspoons each of allspice and cloves.

Stir well, cover, and cook on High for 6 to 8 hours, stirring every couple of hours. After the first 3 hours of cooking, remove the cover so the juice will evaporate more and the fruit will cook down. The mixture will become dark brown and very thick. Spoon it into hot, sterilized jars and process using standard canning methods. I used a hot water bath to process, following the instructions here.

My yield from this batch was 8 half-pints.

I still have a couple dozen more apples sitting on my counter--I think I may have to dig up some more apple recipes!

Grafting 101--Success!

After attending the California Rare Fruit Growers Association's scion exchange in January, I was excited to try grafting. In early February we covered grafting and budding in the propagation class I'm taking at Merritt College and in the lab there I tried doing a whip-and-tongue graft of a plum onto a peach rootstock. That plant is still in the greenhouse on campus and I haven't checked yet to see how it's doing. But after that class, I felt ready to try grafting on my own and on February 17 I grafted two Fuji scions onto apple rootstocks. Here's how it went.

Here are the supplies I worked with: leather-palmed gloves (we used kevlar butcher's gloves in class and I would recommend getting those); a sharp utility knife; pruning shears; scissors; alcohol for cleaning the blades; parafilm for wrapping the graft; saran wrap for covering the graft (next time I do this, I'll use the press-and-seal kind of wrap); a brown paper bag for covering the entire plant; and green garden tape for securing the paper bag. In the future, I would also try using grafting wax to seal the grafts--apparently this really increases the success rate.


I started with two apple rootstocks, about the size of a pencil in diameter:


I got two kinds of apple scions at the scion exchange--Early Fuji (the two long, narrow sticks) and Fuji (the smaller, shorter stick). It's important that the scion and the rootstock be the same diameter at the location of the graft.

I cut the rootstock off in between nodes a few inches above the ground with the pruning shears. Using the utility knife, I made a diagonal cut on the rootstock and then made a downward slice about one-third of the way in at the top of the diagonal cut. I made matching cuts on the scion and fit the two pieces together:

Here is a closer look at the graft, and as you can see, it's not a very good fit. It's really a challenge to get the rootstock and scion cuts to match perfectly and it must take a lot of practice. I was worried that this graft wouldn't take, but it did seem that much of the cambium layers were lining up so I figured I'd hope for the best.


The next step is wrapping the graft in parafilm. Parafilm is a very stretchy plastic-like film used in labs. It helps to seal the graft up tight so the scion doesn't dry out, but it also allows for buds to break through the parafilm, which eventually deteriorates and falls off. I also trimmed the top of the scion and wrapped that in parafilm as well.


If I were using grafting wax, I'd have covered the graft and the top cut with that, but instead I wrapped it in saran wrap to keep moisture from getting to the cut wood.


Following all that, I covered the entire plant with a brown paper bag and put the pot in my carport, out of direct sunlight. I kept the plant lightly watered and after a couple weeks I took the paper bag off. Today I moved the plants out into the sunlight and removed the saran wrap. Here's what I saw:

The bud below the graft is from the rootstock and will need to be trimmed off, but the leaf buds at the top show that the scion is clearly alive and it appears the graft has taken. The other apple that I grafted hasn't budded so far, so I can't tell if that's just slow or if that graft failed.

As challenging and frustrating as it can be to make good matching cuts for grafting, I really enjoyed doing this and hope to do more of it. It's another example of how even far-less-than-perfect attempts in the garden can yield surprisingly good results.