Dear Friends,
The first apple orchard has been planted on Ishwar’s Dera property in Bruce, Wisconsin!
A team of volunteers gathered on a Sunday morning to prepare the holes and plant the trees.
The potted apple trees are lined up according to the date that the fruit ripens.
Apple Trivia: Apples are a member of the rose family.
The sevadars prepared large holes for the trees along the edge of the stormwater infiltration pond.
Apple Trivia: The apple tree originated in an area between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.
The roots were carefully covered with soil.
Apple Trivia: 2,500 varieties of apples are grown in the United States.
Nutrients were added to the soil around each tree.
Apple Trivia: The crabapple is the only apple native to North America.
One team of apple sevadars provides encouragement and advice to the other team.
Apple Trivia: Apple trees take four to five years to produce their first fruit.
The “Dera Dumper” delivers wood mulch to each tree. The mulch will help maintain a moderate soil temperature around the roots, keep the weeds down, and keep moisture in the ground.
Apple Trivia: Apples were introduced to New York by the European settlers who brought seeds with them in the 1600s.
Due to the great number of deer in the area, each tree had to be protected by fencing. Here, a team is pounding in the fence posts.
Apple Trivia: Apple trees can easily live for over 100 years.
And then the deer-proof fencing is installed.
Apple Trivia: It takes about 36 apples to create one gallon of apple cider.
The view northward shows all nine fenced trees along the edge of the pond.
Apple Trivia: In 1976, the world’s largest apple peel was made by 16-year-old Kathy Madison in Rochester, NY. It was over 172 feet long.
The view south shows the future orchard relative to the ISHA Maintenance Shed and Greenhouse.
A single apple tree will typically fill 20 boxes of apples that weigh 42 pounds each … that’s 840 pounds of apples per tree per year. Therefore, when mature in a few years, our nine apple trees could produce 7,560 pounds of apples per year. That’s a lot of delicious applesauce, apple pie, dried apples, apple butter, apple fritters, candy apples, apple cider, apple cake, apple chutney, caramel apples, apple sauerkraut, apple pancakes, apple turnovers, apple juice, baked apples, apple jam, and apple crisp!
Now we wait!
With warmest regards,
Paul Bauer
Chair of ISHA Building & Fund-Raising Committee
Paul Bauer
Chair of ISHA Building & Fund-Raising Committee