Apricot mega harvest

 

apricot trees

Heavy rain and strong wind came through in the last few days, sending apricots down from the loaded trees. Since the fruits are nearly ripe and this amount of water in the land means they will be fatten up with more water but not extra flavor. 

The problem with this extra water is, not just having big and not very flavorful fruits, the fruits will split and this will let ants have a way to get in. So I harvested all the fruits. 

 

mega apricot harvest

From personal experience, with unknown weather condition and pest attacks, it is really difficult to produce beautiful looking and tasty organic fruits!

With this amount of apricot on hand, I have to think of ways to use and to preserve them. The simplest is to make jam and to dry them. On top I also made apricot in grappa, lacto fermenting apricot and salted apricot (to be used like Umeboshi).

So depending on the condition of the fruits, the good looking ones will be kept in the fridge to prolong the enjoyment of fresh fruit. The pecked, blemished, split ones will be used in making jam and fermentation. The extra big and less tasty ones salted, and the reasonable looking ones are dried or steeped in grappa/brandy.