Rossland Harvest Rescue will be offering up a chance this weekend to turn those piles of apples you may have into juice.
That’s because the annual community fruit pressing day is this Sunday, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Participants are asked to book a pressing time beforehand by calling David Klein at 362-9557
The pressing will take place at the same spot as last year near the community garden.
Klein, who is the Harvest Rescue co-ordinator, said the pressing is for people who have apples and want to press them into juice.
Harvest Rescue is associated with Bear Aware and Rossland Real Food.
But Klein said that there hasn’t been as much interest this year as last, so there are still a lot of spots left.
“There’s only a handful of people taking advantage of it this year,” he said. “Not enough fruit was pollinated.”
The Harvest Rescue also works voluntarily to pick fruit trees of residents who may not be inclined to, in an effort to make Rossland less attractive to bears.
I think there are still bears but the pickings is slimmer,” he said.
Klein said the press is in working order.
“It hasn’t been repaired although it looks like it might get repaired this week,” Klein said, adding that even if the repairs don’t get done it still will function properly, but just doesn’t look as good. The repairs include getting a new base made out of plastic and some hard wood to replace the slats which have worn out over time, since the press is quite old.
“Last year we pressed for 10 hours,” he said. “We had 700 litres of juice pressed. We had tons of people - 15 presses, 9 groups of people.”
That included some students from Castlegar who brought a whole pickup truck full of apples.
Participants must book a time. Each press takes about a half hour.
Each press takes about 2-3 boxes of apples (produces approx. 22 liters of juice).
If you want your apples washed, please bring them pre-washed as there is limited water on site.
Apples can go through the grinder and press ‘as is’. Nothing needs to be removed. Bring large containers for the juice.
The press will only take apples. Please bring large cardboard boxes for the leftover pulp. Cost is $20 per press. All proceeds will go to Rossland REAL Food for repair and maintenance of the press and to provide an honorarium for the coordinators of the event.
Contact Klein at 362-9557 to book a timeGo http://www.rosslandfood.com/harvest-rescue for more info.