#15. Pick your own Apples at Beasley's in Danville (#50Things)

A lifelong Hoosier, Emily Metallic is an Indiana University student who was somewhat disillusioned with her home state. After reading the 50 Things Every Hoosier Must Do article in the August 2010 issue of Indianapolis Monthly, Emily made it her mission to complete (and blog about) all 50 Things. Follow her experiences on the #50Things section of the Indiana Insider Blog.

One of the pitfalls of basing this blog off a two-year-old magazine article are the inevitable changes that occur over time. For example, I couldn’t complete #17. Canoe down Sugar Creek because of the severe drought that Indiana experienced this summer. Dates and addresses listed in the article are occasionally outdated. And Beasley’s Orchard doesn’t offer you-pick apple orchards.

I have fond memories of going to Beasley’s pumpkin patch fields to pick out future as a child, but I had never been to their apple orchards. I was unreasonably excited to return to frolic in the fields of yore; one can imagine my disappointment when a Beasley’s employee informed me over the phone that they did not host any you-pick apple orchards, only you-pick pumpkin patches.

After recovering from my crestfallen state I found a handy website that lists PYO (pick your own) farms. Through this site I discovered Anderson Orchards in Mooresville; their website listed an impressive variety of apples and I decided that this would make up for my crushed Beasley dreams.

The Johnny Appleseed cutouts that stand at the entrance and exit wooed me. The red barn market filled with fresh fruits and vegetables made me want to permanently switch to local food. Size options of peck or bushel provided fun words to ponder. (Now that I have Google on my side, I know a peck is about 10 lbs and a bushel is about 40 lbs.)

With a peck bag in hand, my family and I drove through the orchard hunting for the currently pickable apples:

• Mollies Delicious
  • sweet; similar to eating Red Delicious; meant for eating
• Gala
  • sweet; all-purpose
• Golden Supreme
  • sweet; similar to Golden Delicious; all-purpose
• Jonathon
  • tart; all-purpose; popular for pies
• Cortland
  • tart; all-purpose; recommended for cooking; cooks soft

The hunt was pretty easy due to Anderson’s convenient labels and clumping of varieties.

Soon we found a Gala row and hopped out to fill our peck bag. We were sorely disappointed with what we found: tree after tree with either rotting or newborn baby fist-sized apples. We walked the entire row hoping to find at least one blossoming tree but it was futile–the whole row was past its prime.

Luckily future rows were much more successful. It was a fun process; eyeing suitable apples turned into a sort of competition with us calling each other over to gauge the quality of our sweet discoveries and compare them with each other. We quickly filled our bag about 3/4 full with more apples than we could eat.

My family was not the only one having a good time; other families were picnicking and eating fruit straight off the trees. (This is probably not allowed but they didn’t seem to care.) The fun came at a good price too; for $5 we bought about 25 apples.

Now that I am outside of the orchard I realize this is a ridiculous amount of apples for a small family. To avoid letting them spoil, I gave some to my grandma and used about seven of them in a few loaves of apple bread using this tasty recipe. I plan to make homemade applesauce and apple crisp in the next couple days because there is no way we will finish them before they start to go bad.

So far the bread has been a big hit and hopefully the other recipes will be as well. With such fresh apples, I assume they will.