Generally, if you would serve the fruit to your family, it is good for the hunger relief agencies. If there is any question, ask them directly if your fruit is suitable. Fruit for many Food Banks needs to be hand-picked from the tree- it cannot have fallen to the ground. Check with your particular recipients for their specific requirements.

Here are some added considerations:

- The apples are ready to pick when the seeds turn from white to brown and they taste good, or shortly after fruit starts to fall from the tree. The season is from early August into November.

- Apples should be about the size of a tennis ball or larger.

-Examine the top and bottom at the stem and flower ends for "bug poop" (frass: looks like fine brown or tan sawdust) or discoloration from bore holes. Then check the sides for any holes that are detectable due to discoloration and/or bug frass. We do this for each apple as we pick it from the tree, as “buggy” fruit is prevalent in non-commercial trees. Buggy fruit is generally good for cider or processing only.

- Limit the total area of scab patches to the size of a 25-cent piece.

- Check the skin for pin-head sized black dots and dimples and if found, cut into a few apples to look for apple maggot damage: a lacy pattern of brown or pinkish streaks. The apple pictured at the right has an extreme case of dots. Affected fruit is generally good for cider or processing, only.

Fruit Rescue Community Cider is available at Elizabeth Station- Bellingham, Mt. Baker Ski area, Bottleworks- Seattle, North Fork Brewery, Barmann Cellars tasting room in Maple falls and of course, on the Barmann Cellars website. NW Fruit Rescue gets compensated for the apples and Steph is very excited about promoting the NW Fruit Rescue mission, so ask for it at your local bottle shop or bar!

Coddling moth exit holes

Coddling moth frass, flower end

Coddling moth damage is usually limited to exit hole and core. The remaining flesh is fine.

Summer at the cidery: Steph, Steve and Jessie

Applesauce for the food banks

One of the goals for NWFR is to process #2 apples into value-added products to "put them to good use": hard cider, apple cider (pasteurized, not filtered), applesauce, apple butter, dried apples, etc. We've had two recent pilot projects and made 280 pounds of skin-on, no sugar added applesauce for the Foothills Food Bank and the Blaine Food Bank, delivered in 16oz containers. We needed data: Is it practical to make value-added products from #2 apples using volunteer labor in a commercial kitchen? What does it cost? How long does it take? What is the level of acceptance from the recipients? The initial response is quite positive, so we're considering what it takes to scale-up to increase efficiency and through-put. Stay tuned! Here is a video of our first test, producing 80 pounds. The second production test produced an additional 200 pounds. And here's a shout-out to the Whatcom Co. Health Dept. The staff was very supportive and coached me on the details of doing the work and filling out the applications- thanks!

- It’s a good idea to slice up even the best-looking non-commercial fruit before eating it. Even fruit with no obvious exterior warning signs can contain bugs or defects.

Fruit Rescue Community Cider

I visited the cidery at Barmann Cellars, and learned from owners Steph and Jessie they have over 2,000 bottles of NWFR cider labeled  "Fruit Rescue Community Cider" and a bunch of kegs for bars and taprooms, too. This is cider they fermented from the 7,000 pounds of rescued #2 apples that we delivered to them during the harvest season. I'm no cider connoisseur, but I like it! Carbonated, 6.5% alcohol and a nice, light apple taste. We supplied only Whatcom County apples, so buy local!

Here's the label:

- List of Whatcom County hunger relief agencies. See both pages and give them a call to coordinate delivery requirements, here.

- Barmann Cellars is producing and selling a limited edition of “NW Fruit Rescue” labeled hard cider. A percentage of the sales is paid to NW Fruit Rescue.

- The course content for the NW Fruit Rescue class on severe pruning of fruit trees, Guidelines for Renovation Pruning of Overgrown Apple and Pear Trees, here.

- The course content for the NW Fruit Rescue class on grafting, Guidelines for Successful Bench Grafting of Fruit Trees, here.

- Video of the pilot project “Making Applesauce For Foodbanks”