You have seen my pear slices drying in an earlier blog post and the process for the drying of apple slices is no different.  But in preparing the apples for the food dryer I learnt something new.  Whereas the codling moth penetrates the pears via the stalk end, they ‘sting’ the apple on their sides.

This means there was less salvageable apple than there was pear.  The apple internals are much less pleasant to look at.

I had only one pear – yes only one – that was not afflicted by codling moth. On the other hand I had many apples that were not affected. It was pleasant to cut them open.

My espaliered apple tree has two grafts; for a granny smith and a pink lady apple.  My focus for this drying was a few of the pink lady apples.

The granny smith apples need more growing time before harvesting.  As I sliced the pink lady apples I realised the bees had cross pollinated so that some of the interiors of the pink lady apples were more like granny smiths in colour although softer in texture; almost translucent and glowing with the palest of green light.  Very beautiful.

And now after drying four packed trays of apple slices, the fruit has shrivelled and I have two additional jars of more dried fruit.