The Flowers Explore - Saunderskill Farms Apple Orchard in New York - 2021/09/04

We're in New York at Rondout Campground, which happens to be right next to Saunderskill Farms. It's a Saturday so we expect it to be busy, but we're going for it anyway! It's literally half a mile down the road. If it wasn't a busy road, we would have walked!

And even thought it was 10:30am the parking lot was completely empty. Is it open? 

Sure enough, it was. And waiting for us is someone ready to take our order for Apple Cider donuts! $5 for 6. 

Out of the blue Alli said "Bakers have hot buns."

What's that? What did you say? 

Oh... She's reading a sign by their back room. 

Ian was reading the labels on some of the products in the store. Tree juice? 

Lots and lots of different kinds of Tree Juice. Ooh, some of those flavors look pretty good. Like Cinnamon! And some look a little strange. Like Roasted Garlic Maple Syrup. 

There's also a large variety of veggies. 

Along with the donuts, we're also going to be doing some U-Pick apples. You pay for the bag here and head out into the orchard yourself. $9.95 for a Peck or $19.95 for a Half Bushel. For the four of us, we grabbed 1 Peck. That'll be plenty of apples for the week. 

We saw some other families who had 4 large bags! They must have a huge fridge to keep that many apples!

We decided to take our donuts outside to eat. They're covered in cinnamon and sugar which is great. They're a little dry though which is not. The kids weren't fans. 

Well if the donuts aren't great, let's hope the apples are better! Let's head to the orchard and pick some!

The orchards are a short walk from the parking lot. What a beautiful day.

Bright blue skies and it's a pleasantly warm day. 

The orchards here at Saunderskill aren't too large. Here's a satellite picture showing the 8 rows of apples they have. Not too many compared to some of the orchards we visited back in California around this time. 

Yep, 8 rows of apples. 

The surprising part was that there's plenty of apples on the trees still. 

So many that they're starting to fall onto the ground! Maybe this place isn't as crowded as we thought it was going to be. 

We wandered up and down all eight rows to see what varieties of apples were there before we came back to pick them. I was surprised to see so many different kinds! 

And the trees are all loaded!

The best apples always seem to be on top of the tree branches. 

Start with some Fall Galas. 

And then Fuji. You know what this has the makings of? An apple taste test! Theresa grabbed some napkins and a pen and we wrapped up two of each kind of apple to put in our bag. 

We've done a few of these different Apple Taste Tests before. In 2018 with my family in California. In 2019 with my Colorado family. It's great that there's so many different kinds than what we've had before!

There's Empires. 

And Pioneer Macs. 

Spelled Mcoun but really Macoun. 

Red Macs. 

These Crimson Crisp apples are some of the brightest red apples I've ever seen. They almost look fake. 

Theresa compared them to the red apple that the Evil Queen gives Snow White. 

Alli got hers. 

And Ian got his. 

It's nice to have a Daddy ladder. 

Crimson Crisp apples. 

We've been in the orchard for 30 minutes and there's been no one else here. It's been great! The kids could run up and down the rows without bothering anybody. 

Find one you like Alli? 

There's Cortland apples. 

And Galas. 

And a Linda Mac. 

There weren't any signs on this next one, but according to the map we got of the orchards, these are Honey Crisps. Those have been our favorites in many of our previous tests. 

Alli, you've found a huge mushroom! There's an apple for size comparison!

We've filled our bag pretty well, but there's room for just a couple more on top. Alli and Ian got to run and grab whichever apple they though they would like the best. 

Success! We've got a whole bunch of different apples to try next!

1. Fall Gala

2. Fuji

3. Empire

4. Pioneer Mac

5. Crimson Crisp

6. Macoun

7. Red Mac

8. Honeycrisp

9. Linda Mac

10. Cortland

11. Gala

For having such a small orchard, that's a lot of different kinds!

One thing Saunderskill Farms offered through early August was blueberry picking. We asked at the front desk and they said they were done for the season. The blueberry bushes are right next to the apples so we stopped to take a look. 

Sure enough, there weren't many blueberries left. 

There were still one or two good ones, but they were few and far between. The kids gave them a try and they were a little bit sour. 

Back inside the farm house, Theresa is picking up a few Honeycrisp apples before we go. At $1.29 a pound, that's one of the best prices for Honeycrisp apples that she's seen. 

The kids are also suckers for flavored honey sticks so they each got 3 for $1. 

Up at the front of the property there's one more apple tree that wasn't on the map. Pulling out my phone for the PictureThis app, it looks like these are Crab Apples. Ah, no wonder they're not on the list. 

Thank you Saunderskill Farms! It's been a fun morning! Now we're ready to go taste all these apples!

Ian - My favorite part was piking ten varieties of apples. We bought honey crisp. The doughnuts were ok. It was fun. 

Alli - My favorite prt was picking apples. We saw blue barys. I tasted the blue barys. It was fun. The blue bary tasted good but it did tasted a little sour.