A Record Dry Autumn Threatens a Family’s Apple Orchard

Apples at the Treelicious farm stand at the 79th Street Greenmarket (Credit: Chloe Rosenberg)

Early on an October morning, the 79th Street Greenmarket was cold and dry. Ginger Carlson, 59, hauled the last box of apples from her truck and set them up on folding tables with their red, yellow, and green bounty drawing in customers. The Greenmarket had only been open for a minute, but already Ginger began to ring up shoppers at her small register. Unlike other nearby stands, this one didn’t have a tent. That hasn’t been a problem this season; it’s been one of the driest falls in New York City history.

These apples all come from her family’s orchard, Treelicious Orchard, in northwestern New Jersey. Her parents, Carol and Ed Kessler, bought the orchard 40 years ago. Her brother, James, still does the growing, and her 83-year-old mother still bakes the pies in the orchard’s bakery.

Now, however, the ongoing drought is threatening the Kesslers’ orchard. After more than a month without rain, their apple trees are suffering. “It’s been difficult for our farm,” Carol Kessler said.

A native Brooklynite, Carol moved out to Hunterdon County with her husband, Ed, for his work as an electrical engineer. She was an elementary and nursery school teacher who discovered her love for farming with a backyard garden where she grew vegetables for her family. They sold the extra produce to hungry New Yorkers at some of the first Greenmarkets.

“I enjoyed dealing with the customers,” Carol said. Ed, on the other hand, fell in love with the produce. In a dramatic pivot from their white-collar jobs, he and Carol bought an old orchard in Warren County that had trees that were more than 100 years old. It was in the tiny unincorporated town of Port Murray, so called because it had once been a stop on the Morris Canal that the orchard had used to ship apples from Philadelphia to Boston.

According to Carol, Ed became an avid collector of rare and unusual apple varieties. Wherever they went — vacations to Europe, trips to visit Monticello and Mount Vernon, or a wedding in Michigan — he would disappear and come back with a fresh specimen.

Ed died in 2019 at 85, but the trees grown from his collection still stand tall. The orchard now has more than 75 types of apples, including unusual varieties like Spitzenburg, Black Twig, Gravenstein and Winter Banana. Carol proudly remarked that Greenmarket customers purposefully seek out Treelicious for their unusual apples.

However, the trees of the Kessler orchard have been stressed by a lack of water. Carol said that the drought has pushed forward the entire schedule of fruit picking by several weeks. At Treelicious, they usually pick apples until Thanksgiving or after, but this year, they have little faith that their trees will still have fruit by then. For example, Braeburn apples are usually not picked until the middle of November, but they were already falling off the trees by mid-October.

“The trees know better than we do,” Carol said. If the apple trees are done bearing fruit, there’s nothing that the Kesslers can do to extend the season. She says they’re lucky to have some late-season apples; other orchards in the area were out of apples far earlier than usual.

The lack of rain has also resulted in smaller apples. As apples are about 86% water, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the dryness leads to apples that Carol referred to as “child-sized.” The Kesslers were forced to thin their apple crop twice this season, instead of just once, removing still-growing apples from the trees to give the remaining apples a chance to grow to a larger size.

Dave Robinson, a geography professor at Rutgers and the New Jersey state climatologist, said that this weather is extraordinary for all the wrong reasons. According to Robinson, October was the driest month in New Jersey history since the records began in 1859. Additionally, as September also had very little rainfall, September and October 2024 was the driest two-month period on record as well, contributing to the fires that have rampaged through the area over the past few weeks.

Robinson describes the reason behind this phenomenon as a “ridge;” a shelf of persistent high-pressure, warm, dry air that is smothering New Jersey by diverting any incoming storm systems. For example, it blocked any rain from Hurricane Milton or Hurricane Helene from entering the area.

“It’s very hard to dislodge a ridge once it’s established,” Robinson said. These systems usually don’t last more than a few weeks but this one has lasted months, which “makes a bad situation worse.”

Both the farmer and the climatologist agree that New Jersey needs rain soon to keep things from getting worse. Robinson said that perennial crops like blueberries, peaches, cranberries, and apples feel the impact of a harsh dry season for multiple years. If the trees go into winter dormancy in an unhealthy state, it will affect next year’s production as well.

“Hopefully, this winter things turn around to refill the rivers and streams and groundwater that we all rely on,” Carol says. She’s determined but worried about the state of her family’s farm.

Sighing, she said, “The grass and trees are still green, but I don’t know how much longer before things turn brown.”