“Comfort me with apples,” says the Bible, “for I am sick of love.” While that hardly makes apples the ultimate aphrodisiac, they are still “the noblest of fruits,” at least according to Thoreau. They are also the most popular, no matter what anyone says about papayas, rambutans, durian and lychees. And even if berries are now the biggest cash crop in the Pajaro Valley, apples will always be a staple there.
The best Pajaro apples are ready now, and there are plenty of varieties to choose from. http://www.prevedelli.com/varieties.htm
Prevedelli Farms offers 26, from bellflower to winter banana, all of them organic, all of them delicious. The picking season is just beginning, and Silvia Prevedelli is the first to admit that “it’s a lot of work.” But she is not daunted. “I always say if you love it, it’s not work,” she adds.
While most of the county’s apple orchards have been replaced by berry bushes, there is still a chance that apples will make a comeback. One advantage apples have is that they use very little water to grow, especially when compared to berries. Some varieties use as little as 0.5 acre feet, considerably less than the 2-3 acre feet needed to grow berries.
Then there’s the issue of national pride. Apples are as American as … well, apple pie. They’re healthy too (researchers in Hong Kong found that fruit flies fed an apple extract lived 10 percent longer than other flies), and unlike the waxy varieties that stock supermarket shelves around the year, for the next few months, they’re also very local.
Happy picking!
Read more at Santa Cruz Sentinel.
