Craft cideries cultivate apples, taste buds
25 Dec 2018
BENCO
Local orchards sell in fall only
To the trees at Sweetland Orchard, 2012 was the year of the false spring, an unmitigated disaster, but Gretchen Perbix would later come to see opportunity there, as well.
On St. Patrick’s Day that March, temperatures hit a record high 78, leading the apple trees at her orchard, just east of New Prague, to blossom early. Well into April, the weather did a characteristic about-face, and nightly temperatures plunged into the teens.
