Apples take center stage at Triton Elementary

Monday, Sept. 26, was John Chapman’s birthday. Who is John Chapman you ask? We know him better today as Johnny Appleseed and students at Triton Elementary School celebrated both Chapman and the apples he introduced all last week.
Highlight of the week for the five kindergarten classes was a field trip to the Hanson Apple Orchard where they not only learned about apples and had a chance to pick them from the “Triton Tree,” but also to look at several types of squash and gourds.
After exiting their school bus the kindergarten classes followed behind Dave Hanson in his golf cart and made their first stop at his gourd patch. The gourds in his patch, he said, were grown from seeds that came from North Carolina and are still growing as fall approaches. With the first freeze, he told the youngsters, that growth will stop.
While the gourds are grown as decorations, he said, he also grows squash which come in many different varieties and can be eaten in many different ways. He grows pumpkins too, he said, but because of all the rain this season they did not want to grow too big.
After a quick lesson on gourds and squash, however, it was time to move on to the main event – apples.
There are many, many varieties of Apples, Hanson said, but they all share a common trait in that they were developed by grafting one type onto another type.
“All apple varieties are grafted,” he said.
Although they are all developed in the same way, he explained, they are all different. And that led him to explain a type of apple he likes to grow, the Cortland. What makes this apple different, he said, is that after you cut it open