We have a few apple trees on the farm, and as much as I would love to tell you have we get a couple of bushel from them a year, I can`t.  Our trees were here when we moved in and I do not think they have ever been pruned.  They are a mess to say the least.  I hope to eventually replace them, but I figured I would use these apple trees to learn on and make as many mistakes as possible, to produce the best apples in the future.  Since we can not get apples from our farm, we have a local farm that we support that grows the best apples I have ever tasted.  I am trying to convince them to let me come watch them and learn all their secrets. 

Anyway, their apples are amazing.  This year we bought a total of 8 bushels through out the season from them.  Most of those are just for eating, with maybe one bushel for pies, sauce and apple rings.  One thing we really want to learn how to do it winter apples so that we can have local apples all winter.  I spoke to my apple farmer friend and she recommend we try Black Twig apples.  We have bought a bushel, wrapped each apple in newspaper and are storing them in an uninsulated garage.  We also wrapped up some Stayman, Granny Smith and Fuji.  I know the Fuji and Granny do not last as long as the Black Twig so we will make sure to use them first. 

We have tried to store apples in the past and we have not been able to make it past Christmas.  The apples start to go bad and we have to make sauce.  But we always kept them in the basement and have never wrapped them before.  We will see how it goes. 

We are making apple rings and I love how it fills our house with the smell of apples.  The problem with apple rings is my kids eat them so fast I can not get enough made to store for later.  I am going to try and do a half bushel in apple rings.  I have a little less than a bushel of apples that I did not feel comfortable putting in the garage.  These apples either had a nick in them or a soft spot.  I also have some golden delicious apples and I know those will not keep so I will make those into apple rings or sauce. 

I love taking pictures of apples, I just think they are so pretty.  This is a simple picture but I love all the different color apples together. 

Let me know how you store your apples, I would love some suggestions.