Here’s a few pix from pressing last fall.

Simon helping with the wash.   Simon’s property has a few seedling pear trees that are 80′+ tall.  We pressed some of those pears along with some other seedling trees I found on Vashon.  Ultimately they made a very nice strong flavored perry.   Lots of tannins and pear flavors.  I am grafting these varieties to grow in my orchard.

From Left to right, the washer, elevator, grinder and press.  The washer was from decommissioned  mushroom washing system.   The elevator was found on ebay and the grinder/press second hand from a guy who started a cider and wine operation and decided to concentrate on wine.

Frequin Rouge (I believe) cider apples.

Apples float, Perry pears sink — so we had to improvise a floor to keep them from falling to the bottom of the washer.

Quentin helped.  The apples on top are Winter Bananas.  They literally look and taste and smoosh like bananas.  They carry through a fruity banana smell to the finished cider.

Testing the pH.  The pH levels determines how much sulfite to add to kill the wild yeast and bacteria on the apples.  I later innoculated the cider with a cultured yeast suitable for cider (DV10).  Some cider makers let the wild yeasts ferment their juice.  It’s somewhat risky, but reportedly can yield a much more interesting cider.   I will probably try some wild ferments next year on a portion of my cider.

The discarded pomace.  We fed some to a friend’s pigs, the rest was folded into our berry patch to compost in place.

Yep, tannins in those apples!

We were blessed with snow a few days ago.   I snapped (and Photoshopped!) a couple pictures of the first orchard.

Just before Christmas we installed the trellis for the second orchard.   The first orchard was individual tree stakes with no trellis system.    This is fine for the lower density of the first orchard, but the tree stake cost starts to dominate when planting at higher density as in the second orchard.

My mom was visiting for Christmas and helped with the set up of the trellis.

The trellis is a typical Vertical Axis system, with a top wire at approx 7′ and a lower wire at 2′.  At each tree a 1/2″ EMT electrical conduit is fastened using twist wire.   This ends up being a lot less expensive than individual freestanding tree stakes.   I can also attach irrigation lines to the bottom wire, keeping it off the ground.   The disadvantage is it’s a bit tougher to move through a row — sometimes when pruning you want to get to the other side of the tree to make a cut, but the 2′ wire makes that more cumbersome.

Sorry, I have been amiss in updating this blog.   I will (hopefully) be making a few posts to update what we have been doing.

In early December of last year we had our second orchard planting party.   We try to make a party of it, inviting friends out to help.   This year things went even better and faster than last year.

This second orchard which is about 1/2 acre will be planted with the trees much closer together.  5-6 feet spacing.   The trees will be trained using the Vertical Axis system, which gives greater and earlier yields than vs the Central Leader system I used on the first orchard.

The field prepped and ready for planting.   The limestone spots indicate the tree positions.

The tree masters Erin and Destiny gave out trees along with directions on where to plantthem.  Heather photobombed.

People working the line.   We had all 250 trees in the ground well before we lost light on one of the shortest days of the year.   We even had time to transplant about 50 grafts I made last year.

Some odd, but very cute trees.

It doesn’t hurt that the Puget Sound region of WA has a climate quite similar to that of Somerset England.   Somerset, and the neighboring counties are where many of the cider apple varieties were selected.

A tad drier in the summer and a little wetter in the winter.    This means apples selected in the cider producing regions of England tend to perform similarly here.

Today we gave a presentation at the Vashon Ciderfest on planning and planting a cider apple orchard.   Here’s the pdf of our presentation.

Also, check out our haphazard wiki with more cider making and orchard resources.

Here’s a page from the presentation showing the results of 1 years growth, comparing a tree we plopped into the ground with no soil preparation with one in the orchard.

The tree on the right just after planting:

Out here on Vashon Island, deer are plentiful. They can be quite the pest too.   Nearly every garden or orchard on the Island is surrounded by a 7 ft tall or more fence.

Our property is 30 acres and adjoins the 140 acre Island Center Forest preserve.    All of this is excellent deer habitat.    Our land is a mix of grass pasture and smallish groves of douglas fir. When the grass is tall, I will often find a dozen or more swales where the deer have bedded down for the night.     I’m ok with them bedding down for the night, but I’m determined not to become a bed and breakfast for them.   Fresh shoots on apple trees are like candy to a deer, and ripe apples are candy to a deer.

We considered using plastic deer netting – It’s easy to get, lightweight and easy to install.   However, over time, the plastic tends to photodegrade, requiring replacement every 5-10 years.    It will often break in a vertical line – such that it appears to be a functioning fence, yet deer can slip thru.

We ended up going with something a little beefier.     For nearly the same price as plastic deer netting, we were able to get fence material that is galvanized and PVC coated hex grid wire — similar to chicken netting.    I bought the 72″ high fence, but in retrospect the 90″ fence would have been better.   On top of the 72″ fence I ran 3 runs of 8 gauge nylon monofilament wire.   The uprights are 1.5″ angle iron made from high tensile recycled rail steel.  It’s not pretty, a reverse prison for the deer if you will.   Our son is named Quentin, so it’s only fitting that this orchard be named San Quentin.

Here’s a recent shot of the orchard.    The alleyways have been freshly tilled in preparation for planting of the orchard floor.      More about that in a future post

After many trials and tribulations, we have finally settled upon a name for our cider operation.    Vashon Ciderworks was always a working title.  There already is a Vashon Winery, owned by Ron Irvine.   Ron also makes an excellent very dry and tannic English style cider, so we felt like the name was too close.

So the new name is “Dragon’s Head Cider”.

From Wikipedia entry on Hesperides:

The Garden of the Hesperides is Hera‘s orchard in the west, on an island close to the coast of southern Hispania, where either a single tree or a grove of immortality-giving golden apples grew. The apples were planted from the fruited branches that Gaia gave to her as a wedding gift when Hera accepted Zeus. The Hesperides were given the task of tending to the grove, but occasionally plucked from it themselves. Not trusting them, Hera also placed in the garden a never-sleeping, hundred-headed dragon named Ladon as an additional safeguard.

Being on Vashon island, we thought it a great match.   So far we have been asked only a few times why the dragon said cider.    Definitely better than Draggin’ Head cider.

This isn’t the first Island reference we also considered.    There also is the Island of Avalon, another mythical island which is known as an island of apples:

The island of apples which men call “The Fortunate Isle” (Insula Pomorum quae Fortunata uocatur) gets its name from the fact that it produces all things of itself; the fields there have no need of the ploughs of the farmers and all cultivation is lacking except what nature provides. Of its own accord it produces grain and grapes, and apple trees grow in its woods from the close-clipped grass. The ground of its own accord produces everything instead of merely grass, and people live there a hundred years or more.

Sounds like a pretty sweet place.   I can tell you for a fact fields do not give up their bounty willingly.     I like the name, but it got mixed reviews when we ran it past friends and strangers.   A lot of people thought of King Arthur and then very quickly Monty Python.  Others thought of the Toyota vehicle.   Some of the Brian Ferry song.   It’s also a soft word in the mouth and not so memorable.

This past November was an incredible milestone in our lives.  With the help of more than 50 friends and family we planted our first orchard here on Vashon Island.

We are still struggling to find the right words to describe the event, and to describe the amount of gratitude that we have for all of the help that we received.  To know us is to know that the importance of community is fundamental to our identities.  We are blessed to be surrounded by a community that is so supportive and enthusiastic about our vision.

We hope to watch this orchard grow and mature and fruit over the years with the members of our community by our sides.

Many many thanks to all of those that contributed to the event.

Here are a few choice photos from the day.

These poor trees came all the way Cummnins Nursery in Ithaca NY.    They were the only nursery that I could find that had cider trees in stock.   The trees arrived a bit parched, but I think they will be all right.

Here’s what I ordered (most on G11 dwarfing rootstock)

18    Ashmeads Kernel
42    Brown Snout
65    Dabinett
16    Grimes Golden
26    Harry Masters Jersey
26    Kingston Black
17    Michelin
36    Roxbury Russet
20    Wickson Crab
47    Yarlington Mill
3    Stoke Red
4    Nehou
2    Muscat de Dieppe
23    Macoun
11    Brown Snout M9 – dwarfing
2    MedailleD’or
1    Yarlington Mill G30 – Semidwarfing
10    BrownSnout M7 – Semidwarfing
20    Dabinett M7 – Semidwarfing
15    StokeRed M7 – Semidwarfing
10    Yarlington Mill M7 – Semidwarfing
10    Normanischen Perry pear  Pyrus betulifolia – standard.

Bob Norton, who has given us lots of invaluable orchard advice, came with his family and put in a good number of trees.

Happy tree, happy Miguel.

Some of the rewards for the crew.

More photos here.

As the fall sets in, we are preparing to plant our first apple orchard here on Vashon Island.  The orchard is a 1.5 acre field, just to the South of our house.

We have spent many months now reading and researching orchard preparation, establishment, and management.  The extent of our tactical experience growing food crops of any kind is limited to a few small patches of soil in the garden of our old home in Seattle.  We had a small seasonal vegetable garden, a pear tree, two old plum trees, a cherry tree and some raspberries.  Nothing close to the scale of what we’re proposing here.  We’re hardly farmers, but we consider ourselves fast learners and hard workers, so hopefully we’ll do alright.

Luckily our land was once a farm, and the majority of it is just pasture grass now, so we didn’t have to clear very much native growth or old trees to find a suitable site on our property for the orchard.  When we were searching for land on the island, the lack of clearing that would be required was one of the reasons this property was so appealing to us.

We had the soil tested by the UMass Soil Testing Lab.  Here are the results:

Not bad for apple trees.  There is plenty of organic matter and nitrogen, probably from the many years that it existed as pasture grass and was just mowed and left to compost in place.  It was too acidic and somewhat low on P, K and Mg.  Adjusting the pH was the biggest task.  UMass recommended adding 3.9 tons of agricultural lime per acre.  Unfortunately, the lime that I was able to procure was Aglime, which is a fine, flourlike powder.  Spreading it with the fertilizer spreader was out of the question as it would cake up and not spread.  After futzing around with another spreader I finally just bucked up and spread it by hand, an epic task for which my arms and wrists still hate me.  After that, the few hundred pounds of P, K and Mg were a breeze.

The soil here on Vashon Island is glacial till, which means it is largely clay loam, about 9-12 inches thick, with a hard clay layer below.  Water doesn’t percolate very well through clay soil, and with all the winter rains, things get pretty soggy around here.  Standing water can linger for quite some time after a rain, and apple trees hate to have their feet wet.  Waterlogged soil will kill the roots, so we made some extra effort to prepare the land in the hopes of avoiding that fate.

On the advice of Dr. Bob Norton, we decided to mound the tree rows to increase the usable soil depth for the trees.  Early attempts using our John Deere tractor with a rear blade proved futile, so we finally broke down and hired a local guy with a bulldozer to mound the rows.  It took him 4 hours, what would have likely taken me 60 hours or more.  A huge rainstorm fell the day following the mounding, converting the field to a mud field, making tractor access nearly impossible.  We all breathed a sigh of relief that we had finished any field work that would have required the tractor.  And the mounded rows seemed to be draining just fine, which is quite promising.

The last of the tasks for preparing the orchard included fencing the perimeter and placing the tree stakes.  We chose to fence with 8 foot deer fencing made from galvanized steel and dipped in a PVC coating.  And we used high carbon rail steel angle iron fence posts and attached the fencing to trees where possible.  Since we planned to rely on the help of our friends and family to plant the orchard, we decided to place all of the tree stakes in advance of planting day so that it would be clear to all of our volunteers where each tree should be planted.

Once the fencing was complete and the tree stakes were all in place, we were ready for the arrival of our trees!