McDougal Orchards

201 Hanson Ridge Road, Springvale, Maine 04083
phone: 207-324-5054 fax: 207-459-7849

Apples are:

Fat Free
A good source of pectin, potassium and vitamin A and C
Contain N0 Cholesterol or sodium
A medium sized apple has only 80 calories and 16 grams of absorbable carbohydrates
More dietary fiber than most hot or cold cereals
A rich source of phytonutrient (plant-based) antioxidants
One of the best sources of the mineral boron, which may promote bone health
Natural fruit sugars, mainly in the form of fructose
High in fiber content which releases the natural sugars slowly into the blood stream, maintaining steady blood sugar levels

Recent studies have linked eating apples to the lowering of "bad" cholesterol and improved lung functioning, as well as reduced risk of developing heart disease, lung, colon and liver cancers, stroke and Alzheimer's disease. Eat an apple after a workout or for breakfast to restore energy reserves in the liver.

Apples are a healthy choice at any time of the year eaten whole from the hand, sliced, in salads, cakes and of course pies.

Handling Apples

The more pressure you use to pick the apple off the tree the more likely you will bruise it. Hold the apple in the palm of your hand and lightly grasp the apple. Roll the apple up towards the sky until the stem breaks from the tree. Place it into your bag carefully.

Handled and stored properly apples can have a storage life of 90 days or more.
Store apples in the refrigerator. They'll last up to 10 times longer than if left at room temperature.
Apples absorb odors easily, so keep them away from foods with strong odors.

Growing Apples

I always thought that growing apples was as easy as sitting in my lounge chair out in the orchard with a cold drink and watching them grow. Boy was I mistaken.

Growing an apple tree is much more complicated than planting a seed in the ground. Since apples do not grow true to their seeds, young trees that have been grown in a nursery from cuttings are transplanted to the orchard site. These trees have a desired apple variety grafted (attached by tissue splicing) on to a root stock selected for characteristics of size and vigor. Most apple trees in our orchard are on dwarf stock, allowing for more efficient use of valuable land and labor. You can still find some old stock in the main orchard. We refer to it as our nostalgia block and it gives us room to park cars. It takes another 3 to 4 years before any apples are produced from a newly planted tree. Apple trees can live for over 100 years.

Very cold temperatures (below zero F) can damage the roots if we have no snow cover. Snow is an insulator and keeps the ground at just below 32 degrees. The winter of 2003/04 we had a cold snap, -20 for a week with no snow, and we lost around 1,000 trees during the spring and summer. In 2005 there are still signs of trees that were affected by that one cold snap.

In late winter or early spring the apple trees are pruned. Branches are cut off to allow for better sunlight coverage to the fruit. A copper nutrient spay is applied in early spring. In mid May the apple trees come into full bloom and are covered in apple blossoms. It is quite a beautiful site to see. In order for the apple blossoms to become apples, they must be cross pollinated: the pollen from one blossom must travel to another before fertilization can occur. We bring in bees to assist the wild bees in the cross pollination process. Cold and rainy weather can affect the bees as they tend to hang out in the hives until it warms up and stops raining.

After fertilization occurs and seeds begin to develop, the petals from the blossoms fall off, the core forms and the eating part of the apple starts to grow. There are generally too many apples on the tree so the apples have to be thinned out. This can be done using sprays or done by hand, picking individual apples off the tree. This process lets the tree put more energy into fewer apples. We end up with larger apples rather than a lot of smaller apples had the tree not been thinned.

Behives in the main orchard We practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM) on the orchard. Red apple looking spheres with phenome paste are placed on the perimeter of the orchard blocks. Once a week an IPM scout counts the bugs stuck on the red spheres. When a particular bug reaches a certain threshold (so many bugs per shpere) the trees are sprayed to remove these pests before they damage the apples. Chemicals are expensive, they take labor to apply which generally is done very early in the morning so the less spraying we do the better for everyone.

Some summer pruning is done, as the leaves are fully developed, to get maximum sunlight to the apples. Suckers from the roots are cut so the tree puts more energy into the apples. Summer carries the risk of hail during thunderstorms. Hail will dimple and bruise the apples. We hold our breath every time a thunderstorm passes. We do not irrigate the trees but sometimes we water newly planted trees if we haven't had rain for awhile.

Late August we open for early apples and continue picking different varieties of apples until late October. Generally after Columbus Day you need to hunt for apples but we usually have plenty of apples in the salesroom. We do sell wholesale apples to the Sanford Hannaford supermarket. We supply the store with apples until just before Thanksgiving or until we run out of apples, whichever comes first.

Most apples you buy in the grocery store have been stored in controlled atmospheric (CA) storage rooms where the temperature is 32 degrees, and the oxygen is replaced with nitrogen to slow ripening. Apples come out of these rooms months later fresh as the day they were picked. We do not have any CA storage nor do we ship any apples to CA storage.

Growing apples takes all year. If you look closely, you can even see the promise of next years apple at the tip of each branch. It is the bud that will become the apple which you might eat a year from now. Be careful when you are picking apples. If you pull off the fruit spurs you are removing next years fruit.

JERSEYMAC Mid-August
USA Raised Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ. Introduced 1971
Melba - Julyred cross

Dark Color, bright red with yellow highlights, bloom of McIntosh, but ripening a month earlier, Perfumed with striped strawberry or vinous flavor, sweet, melting, snow white medium firm flesh, tough skin.

The earliest apple we grow. Always the first fresh apple pie of the season. Once picked the apples should be eaten within a couple of weeks. They should be kept refrigerated.

McDougal Orchards

201 Hanson Ridge Road, Springvale, Maine 04083 phone: 207-324-5054 fax: 207-459-7849

Apples are:

Handling Apples

Growing Apples

201 Hanson Ridge Road, Springvale, Maine 04083
phone: 207-324-5054 fax: 207-459-7849