Our summer adventure of 2025 involved plants and rocks. We decided to redo what was already a good start of our modest terraced rock garden. Our inspiration for this redo was to celebrate culinary plants and also feature native plants. We moved hundreds of pounds of rock, we sifted dirt, and we removed overcrowding and non-native plants in order to create new planting beds.

Cordova isn’t as far flung as Chignik Lake. But it does take planning and effort to brings things here – especially live plants. So when our local Ace Hardware had a pop-up plant sale early in the summer, it made sense to go shop what was already in town. We had intended to find some flowers to plant in hanging baskets. As a happy surprise, we noticed the pop-up had apple trees. And not just any apple trees. They were grown in Fairbanks and hybridized to withstand extreme cold temperatures. Those little trees seemed like a perfect fit for a couple of our new planting beds.

At the time of planting, we noticed that both trees had fertilized flowers on them. We were advised to pluck most of the flowers off so that the trees could put their energies into root and tree growth. We were curious to see how the little apples would grow. So, we left a few blooms on each tree. By September, we had seven little apples.

Armed with some leftover puff pastry, I chopped the little apples and tossed them with a bit of sugar and cinnamon. This mixture was piled atop the puff pastry and baked for 20 minutes. Drizzled with caramel topping and they were ready for serving. What a lovely way to honor this first crop.

Here’s to you, my little Alaskan apple trees. May you have many years of bearing beautiful little red fruit.

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