CALLICOON – What a difference a year makes.

In 2023, Seminary Hill Cidery, located on Wagner Rd. in Callicoon overlooking the scenic Upper Delaware River Valley, was optimistic for a record apple crop.

Their 1,500 trees, spread across two orchards, were loaded with blossoms, ready to turn to fruit.

Then a late frost killed every blossom.

“We didn’t have an apple,” Orchard Manager Bill Hess said. “Mother Nature can be cruel.”

This year, the apple trees again were loaded with blossoms – but this time they turned to fruit as the weather cooperated.

“We picked apples from early September until the end of October,” Hess said.  “We got a little tired.”

This year’s crop totaled 725 bushels of apples, which is the most Seminary Hill Cidery has ever produced.

A bushel of apples weighs 42 pounds and usually contains 120 medium-sized apples.

That’s 87,000 apples that were harvested this year.

“Our oldest trees were planted in 2014,” Hess said. “We had some trees with four bushels on them.”

There are many different varieties of apples in the orchard, including:

• Cortlands

• Liberty

• Yarlington Mills

• Reine Zabergau

• Chestnut Crab

• Puget Spice

• Reine De Pommes

• Dabinett

• Baldwin

• Golden Russet

• Redfield and

• Black Oxford

“The Puget Spice crabapples are tiny but revered for cider making,” Hess said. “The Chestnut Crab apples are pressed for a young, single variety cider.

“The Baldwin apples are an old-time variety,” he noted.

Baldwin is one of the best New England apples, and one of the oldest. It is large and conical, with crimson red over a coppery green skin.

“All the apples are organically grown,” Hess said.

The crates of apples are in cold storage until the cider maker can catch up.

It certainly is a good problem to have.