Kentucky Farms Feed Me - Visit an Apple Orchard
MAIN IDEAS
Some fruits grow on trees. A group of fruit trees is called an orchard.
Kentucky farmers watch the life cycle of fruit trees very carefully to care for the fruit and determine when it is ready to be picked.
Pollinating insects are important for apple development on trees.
Apples may be sold by weight in units called bushels and pecks and fractions of bushels and pecks.
WATCH
Kentucky kid Kylie visits Mulberry Orchard in Shelbyville to learn how apples are grown, picked, sorted, and washed to sell to customers.
Background Information
Kentucky is home to about 1,200 fruit orchards (a group of fruit trees). Most of those orchards sell their fruit directly to local customers, restaurants, and schools. The apples, peaches, and pears at the grocery store most likely come from a state that has many more orchards.
Fruit trees take some patience to farm. That’s because it takes a tree a number of years to grow before a tree starts bearing fruit. First, the farmer gets small trees, or saplings, from a nursery and plants them in neat rows. Then, the tree must grow before it can be harvested. It can take 3 or more years of growing before the farmer can pick its fruit. Once the tree is mature and ready, the farmer will get bigger yields of delicious fruit every year.
All About Apples
Apples are grown in every state in the continental U.S. Top-producing states include Washington, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, California and Virginia.
Only sour crab apple trees were native to America, until European settlers arrived and brought with them their English customs and favorite fruits. Native Americans appropriated what they liked, cultivating apples extensively. The first American orchard was planted around 1625 by William Blackstone on Boston´s Beacon Hill.
The first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, William Endicott, was a distinguished orchardist. Endicott´s account book noted his children had set fire to part of his operation, destroying 500 trees, a very considerable operation at that time in history. Well-known American apple orchardists include George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Most apples are harvested between late August and October. Each apple is hand picked by people using ladders and cloth buckets.
The average annual U.S. apple crop is 224 million bushels. Each bushel contains on average 126 medium-sized apples.
USDA recommends at least 1-2 cups of fruit per day for children and adults based on gender and age. So, start with apples: Fat-, sodium-, and cholesterol-free, an excellent source of fiber (5g/apple), and weighing in at only 80 calories each (for a tennis ball-sized apple).
1 small apple = 1 cup.
Be sure to eat the whole apple. Health-promoting phytonutrients can be found throughout, but the bulk of antioxidants – including a big dose of vitamin C – are concentrated in or just under the skin.
Additional Videos
Book Connections
In this playful and humorous story, the students learn a lot about apples and apple orchards—including how apples are harvested, how cider is made, and what the different varieties of apples are—while trying to solve a riddle.
This book is part of our Book Bundle, or you can find it at Amazon.
Companion Activities
Original Field Trip
Visit Hinton's Orchard and Farm Market in Hodgenville, Ky. to learn how Jeremy and Joanna Hinton grow fruit to sell at their store, farmer's market, and local schools. Use the corresponding lessons to teach math, creating and interpreting data, apple life cycles, and all about pollinators and honey bees.