apricot harvest

We arrived back in Taj just in time for apricot season. Our garden has 3 apricot trees, each a different variety, and the branches were bowing low upon our return. I cannot explain to you how good fruit tastes here. In America, it seems that our fruit is engineered to look good and survive cross-country shipping. Here, fruit has been developed to taste awesome, but you'd better eat them while they are good because they go bad in a hurry. The first taste I had off one of our trees I literally had to brace myself; it was that good.

Here I am doing the picking and Ella is doing the eating...



To really get the apricots down, we needed a better method than standing on a short ladder. So we got out the bed sheet and let the ladies hang on while I climbed up and shook the branches till they were persuaded to give up their produce...


We've had two rounds of apricot harvest by this method. This picture only represents a fraction of what we got off the trees...

Jen made about 15 liters of jam. Here she is with her little helper and the finished product...