Weather perfect for fall apple picking

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - 'Tis the season!

Fall is here, and the weather is not only perfect for apple picking, but the weather has been perfect all summer to promise a big crop this season. However, one farm says what's been helpful for the apples has not been so good for the pumpkin patch.

Garrett Mayer of Mayer Bros. in West Seneca has been raving about the recent weather to start the season. "It's still [going to] be warm enough for cider sloshes and it's a nice day. It's [going to] be a nice day to be out this weekend," says Mayer. But he admits the warm weather does present a bit of a challenge in getting people to think fall. "We need a little bit of the colder mornings and colder nights to get people thinking of us and thinking of the fall," notes Mayer.

While you can't pick your own apples there, Mayer says the apple crop is abundant this year. "We buy the undersized apples that the growers can't sell to the supermarket," explains Mayer. It takes about 12 pounds of apples to make a gallon of cider, so you need quite a lot of relatively reasonably priced apples to keep the price of a gallon of cider reasonable." Mayer says a few passing hailstorms and some frost in the spring deformed some apples, making them unsuitable for the grocery store, but just fine for cider. "It's kind of a symbiotic relationship. They're in the business to grow fresh fruit for the supermarkets and we take what apples that can't make the grade for that," says Mayer.

It's a bumper crop over at Baker Farms in Ransomville. "We are very fortunate with the crop of apples," says Gloria Baker. "We're hoping we can even get them all picked off of the trees before. Before this that nasty snow starts flying."

With the "u-pick" orchard, Baker hopes, with the good weather, many folks will bring their families to help with the apple picking. "We've had a lot of people say that once they've come here to do their apple picking that they'll be returning every year because they really liked the way my husband keeps the orchards. They're very nice to get to a short walk but the trees are absolutely beautiful," adds Baker.

While the weather right now is perfect for the apple season because of the cooler nights, Baker says there's some not so good news for those looking to pick a pumpkin out of a patch. "In July when we got all that rain it did affect our pumpkins. We normally have a U-Pick pumpkin patch, and this year is the first year ever that we don't. We're not going to have one because we just got flooded out," says Baker. That doesn't mean pumpkin fans are shut out. She says they'll be bringing over pumpkins from another field. "Normally we can't even get them all out of the fields," adds Baker.

Baker adds there are fun things to do at Baker Farms. "We do wagon rides, where tractor wagon rides for the families and it just goes around the farm just for enjoyment," adds Baker.