We noticed a little while ago that our apples were looking a little squished. Healthy, yes…but squished too. We’ve heard and read that you should thin your apples (fruit in general) so it has enough room to breathe and isn’t touching its neighbor. Thinning, while a bit sad, allows for the remaining fruit to mature to its best potential (just like thinning seedlings in the garden).
Even knowing all this, Tool Lady and I were both a bit hesitant to just strip our wonderful trees of so much potential fruit! I mean really…we’ve been babying these trees for along time now and are so excited about every single apple! It just felt wrong thinking about throwing so many apples in the compost! So, I googled and googled and googled, looking for recipes using under ripe apples and came up with a whole lotta nothing! Then, finally, I came across a recipe on Food in Jars that briefly mentions using under ripe apples. Well, I have loved each of Marisa’s recipes I’ve tried so far (and am happily pouring through her new book), so I figured it was worth a shot!
So, we got outside and thinned and thinned and wound up with 4 lbs 6 oz of itty bitty under ripe apples. After rinsing them off and chopping them up, I had 12 cups of apples which is exactly what the Honey Lemon Apple Jam recipe called for! Talk about perfect!
This sounds so good! Never thought of using unripe apples to make jam. Thanks for linking up at the Carnival of Home Preserving!
It’s taken me awhile to learn to thin but it does make a difference to the health of vegetables as well as fruit. It seems to me the trick is to figure out how to use the thinnings to assuage the guilt! We never have enough apples to thin, but homemade pectin is a great way to use green apples:
http://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/The_Forager/pectin.htm
Oohhh…thank you for this link! Awesome! I never even considered making homemade pectin!
That is so awesome! We don’t have any apples this year. The granny smith apples were lost to aphids early, and then the blossoms that were left were ripped off in the different wind storms.
Oh no! Were they those awful black aphids? They’ve taken over our cherry tree 🙁
Did you get to use your own honey in the recipe, too? Sounds lovely.
Oh, I wish! No, no honey harvests yet this year! Hopefully towards the end of the summer. It was local NM honey, though 😉
I know thinning your tree fruits is hard but in the end you will be happy with the results. You will have much large and healthier fruit because of the thinning. I have the same struggle every time I thin just about any thing in the garden.
Thanks for the reinforcement! I know it’ll be worth it in the end…and being able to use the thinnings helped me feel alot better 🙂