Somerville with Townie Tim: When to go apple picking

It’s that time of the year again. No, I’m not talking about fall — it’s apparently been fall for weeks. I’m talking about that time in the year when all your friends are posting stories about fun adventures in other, warmer parts of the country. You need to counter with the quintessential New England activity for your social media feed: apple picking.

Jokes about taking basic friend group pictures and throwing leaves aside, I absolutely love apple picking. Seriously, your boy Townie Tim is out there picking apples, making pies, drinking cider and most importantly throwing the cores into the woods. It is so much fun, notwithstanding it is the most cliche thing you can do right now.

This column will not be about going apple picking; you should definitely do it, and you are a fool to even consider not going. This column will be about something more crucial: when to go apple picking.

Here’s the thing: The timing is key because you want to maximize the factors that make apple picking fun. First, you want to make sure there is a full selection of apples available. If you were like me, growing up there were only red and green apples. Most of the red ones were gross because they were dry and all of the green ones were gross because they were sour. For those of you still in that world, I am super sorry. The good news is that if you time it right at the mid-season, pretty much right now, you will have a selection of over 10 apple varieties to choose from. If you have never experienced the amazing taste of a Cortland or Braeburn apple picked fresh off the tree, then you have some living yet to do.

Second, the weather is critical to the experience. Something about apples, and the products they constitute (doughnuts, pies, tarts, butters, ciders), is just better when there is a large temperature difference between the food and the weather. For that reason alone, you want to wait until there is a little chill in the air before you saddle up out to the orchard. Nothing can compare to the feeling of when you drink hot apple cider and breathe out a full cloud of steam into the autumn air.

In addition, as I mentioned before, you will be taking a bunch of pictures, and if you are not in proper fall attire, you and your friends will look like fools. Seriously, if at least one person in your party is not wearing a scarf in the pictures you post, all your friends in California will think they could cut it in the cold New England climate. The whole experience of apple picking should reflect a fun activity despite somewhat of a struggle against the weather and terrain.

So get out there and collect those apples! Remember to stay reasonable about the number of apples you can eat in a week. Far too many times I have been in groups when everybody came back with a whole bushel, only to see those slowly go bad in the ensuing weeks. If you have any extra, let your old pal Townie Tim know, I’d be happy to make some applesauce out of them.