How to Pick and Store Apples For The Winter
It's that time of year! The apple tree is overloaded, and you simply can't eat them all at once. Epic Gardening Founder Kevin Espiritu will teach you the best ways to pick and store your apples for winter.

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It’s that time of year! The apple tree is overloaded, and you simply can’t eat them all at once. No amount of apple cobblers, apple pies, and applesauce will use them all. So it’s time for you to empty the tree and get them stored away properly, ensuring that you can enjoy this bounty for the next few months.
Whether you’re growing Gala or Granny Smith, I’ll explain the best way to store apples, and how to pick them all.
How To Harvest Apples
Here in California, apple season lasts from July through late November. This depends on the type of tree and whether it’s an early-season, mid-season, or late-season producer.
I find some of my favorite tart apples are ripe during the entire month of September and into October. These are some of the best baking and cooking apples, so I definitely want to store them!
Are They Ripe?

Before you can pick your apples, you have to ensure that they’re ripe. While a bug-infested or rotten apple can fall from the tree at any time, the best and simplest way to tell if your apples are ripe is when they begin to drop on their own.
Apples ripen from the outside of the tree inward, so the first ones ready will be on the very outside. Eat the outside apples, and store the inside ones quickly!
Color can also give you a hint as to whether your apples are ripe. If you’re growing a Granny Smith, and it has reached that perfect bright green hue, you’re close. Some of the streaked apples are a bit more difficult to gauge that way.
Of course, the best way to test is to cut a sample apple open. Slice it in half, and then look at the seeds. If the seeds are dark brown, your apple is ripe or nearly so. If it tastes sweet and juicy apple, or tart and tangy for the more tart varieties, you’ll know if it’s time. It should also be crisp and firm in texture.
How To Pick Apples

If you have a dwarf tree, or you’re visiting an apple orchard, this is a simple process. Most orchards or home arborists keep their trees small so they’re easy to pick.
Reach up and grasp the apple, then roll it upwards towards its branch and give it a little twist. The apple should come off in your hand. If two apples are joined together at the stem end, you’ll likely get both with one twist.
If you’re picking from a taller tree, you may need the aid of an apple-picking basket. With one of these, you can use the telescoping pole to help you reach the higher parts of the tree. The hooking teeth of the basket over the stem will pop the apple free from its branch with a light tug.
Make sure there’s a piece of foam or other padding in the bottom of the basket to prevent bruising!
Picking Tips

Pick your apples early in the morning, while they’re still cool from the nighttime temperatures. Do not wash your apples once you’ve picked them. In fact, it’s best to wash them right before they’re used. Apples have a naturally-formed protective coating while they grow on the tree, and washing that off leaves them slightly more susceptible to early spoilage.
Try to avoid bruising the apples. Bruised apples spoil more quickly. If you do bruise some, you can always make canned cinnamon apples, apple butter, or homemade canned applesauce using a water bath or pressure canner. That will give you the ability to still eat them later. You can also try your hand at pressing cider, but that requires a bit more equipment!
How To Store Apples
As you can see, apple picking is pretty easy. But what’s the best way to store apples?
How Long Do Apples Last?

Depending on the apple season in question, they will either go bad quickly, or last for months.
Early-season apples are usually picked and eaten right away. These are the classic snacking apples and tend to be softer and easily bruised. You may be able to store a few in your fridge for a week or two, but not much longer.
Mid-season apples are variable depending on what type of apple they are. Those that are meant for eating fresh can last for a couple of weeks in the fridge. Those that are meant for cooking and baking can be stored for up to a month and a half in the fridge.
Since mid-season tends to be in the late summer and the temperatures outside are hot, it’s harder to store these outside of the refrigerator. Even if you have a cool enough place, they don’t last as long unless kept cold.
Late-season apples usually last well through the winter months, both inside and outside of the refrigerator. Most of these apples can last for two to four months if stored well and kept cool. Stick with the firm-fleshed and thick-skinned varieties.
Should You Refrigerate Your Apples?

Apples will ripen 6-10 times as fast at normal room temperature as they do when kept in cold storage.
Personally, if I plan on eating the apples, I love them when they’re cold and straight out of the fridge. But should you store apples in the refrigerator normally?
The answer is: it depends. If you have an entire tree’s worth of apples, you may find that storing them all in the fridge will take the whole fridge! But if you have a box of apples and enough refrigerator space, it’s not a bad idea to store apples there.
I personally find that a vented produce bag that allows the apples to breathe is the safest way to store them. Place 9-12 apples in a vented bag, close it and tuck it in the crisper drawer. If you’ve got a large crisper drawer, you may be able to store 3-4 bags of apples in there.
Check them regularly to make sure they’re all in good shape and that none are starting to go soft. If you find any that are softening, have broken skins, or have bruises, remove those and use them quickly. Bruised or damaged apples will spoil first. Once one apple spoils, the others near it are at risk.
Preparing Your Apples For Storage

Larger apples tend to go bad faster than smaller apples. Store your apples by size (small/medium/large) and use your larger apples first, working your way to the smaller ones as time goes on.
Apples are interesting in that they like to have a little bit of moisture nearby so they don’t dessicate, but they don’t want constant moisture. Keep a moist towel near your apples for some ambient humidity, but not on the apples. You don’t want the apples themselves to be wet.
If you are storing apples outside the refrigerator, wrap each apple individually in newspaper. The newspaper will help protect the other apples if one does spoil. A damp paper towel is also appropriate.
Once you’ve wrapped up your apples, place them in a box. I try not to stack up more than two layers. I like to place a sheet of cardboard between my layers to add a little extra padding, but that’s not required.
Cardboard or wooden boxes are best for storing apples, but you can also store them in seed trays. What’s most important is that where they’re stored is cool, and slightly humid with good air circulation. Those factors will give you the best chance at long-term storage.
Store different varieties in different boxes. Just like different varieties of apples are ripe at different times, they also have different rates of spoilage. Keeping them separated helps you to keep track.
Keep your apples in a cool, dark, frost free location. Root cellars are fantastic choices. When the weather gets colder, shelves in the garage can work (provided that your garage is not prone to frost). You can also store apples in a frost-free shed, but it must keep the apples from freezing.
If you are also storing potatoes, do NOT store your apples near potatoes! Potatoes give off an ethylene gas during storage that can cause apples to spoil quicker. In fact, if you have potatoes in one room, keep your apples in a completely different room, or as far away from each other as possible.
Keep Your Expectations Realistic

We’re spoiled by market-fresh apples now, and bruised brown spots in our apples just don’t appeal to us. But most storage apples a century ago were meant to be used for cooking (and thus would turn brown or go soft anyway), and the standards were much lower then.
Our weather patterns have changed over the last century. Someone with an apple tree will often find that their apples spoil before the winter comes, as they just don’t have a cold enough place available to store them in late summer and early fall. If that’s your problem, you can extend your storage period by keeping apples in the refrigerator until you have optimal temperatures for apple storage.
Most commercial apples are stored in controlled environments which provide the optimum levels of humidity, temperature, and atmospheric conditions. Occasionally, carbon dioxide gas is used to help slow the aging process in the apples. This means that a commercial grower is likely going to be able to store their apples for far longer than you will.
You can still get a good, long storage time out of your apples with some careful supervision. Just don’t expect them to last quite as long as grocery store apples do.
On the bright side, home-grown or locally-farmed apples generally taste a whole lot better than supermarket apples do. Your apples will be wonderful when you do use them!