What happens to all this left over produce when you close for the season?
This is a question asked by many of our customers.  We donate some to food banks and group homes through the generous effort of Patti, a wonderful customer, and her helpers.  The apples left this year have now been pressed into cider.

What is innovative about that, you may ask.
Apple cider has been around a long time, it's the process that is innovative.
Geissberger's Farmhouse Cider (www.farmhousecider.ca) in Durham Region just won the Ontario Farm Marketing Association Innovation Award sponsored by Foodland Ontario for their apple cider processing trailer.

We finally got a break in the weather this past weekend and were able to get our apples squeezed into cider.

Why this processing procedure?
As quoted from their website - "We provide sterile processing with high-tech equipment, innovative high temperature/ short time pasteurizer and convenient Bag-in-Box packaging.
The Bag-in-Box packaging system gives our ciders a shelf life of 1 year without preservatives or refrigeration.
The mobile mill meets all health regulations and is capable of processing and packaging up to 2 - 20 bushel bins of apples per hour, producing 500 litres of freshly-pressed pasteurized cider."  

I couldn't have said it better.
We were really excited to get our apples pressed into cider by them.  The 5 litre boxes will be available for sale when we open - first weekend in May.   We've booked them to come for the last Sunday in October to demonstrate the cider pressing at our farm.

Congratulations once again to the Geissbergers for providing a wonderful, innovative way of preserving the harvest.

Enjoy some pictures from our day pressing cider.  Jim had a good workout.

squeezing out the juice
Jim loading the apples
apple pulp getting wrapped for pressing
cider into the bag

Gord at the pasteurizer

it's in the bag
Wanda with the boxed cider
It all happens on the trailer