Down year expected for Michigan's apple crop

According to the Michigan Apple Committee the Michigan apple crop is expected to be "1/3 or more below average." April snow, a May freeze, and weather too hot for ideal pollination all contributed to the expected fewer apples this fall. The first apple (and most in demand) variety available in Michigan is the Honeycrisp. These apples are usually much more expensive than other varieties due to the demand far outstripping the supply. With a lower yield this year you can expect to pay a lot more come mid-September when the apples are ready.

One thing you can do is to find your local apple grower and either go apple picking (a highly enjoyable event in our household) or purchase their already picked selection. Visit www.AppleJournal.com to find an orchard or cider mill near you.

Notes from the garden as the season winds down

August is 2/3s gone and school starts in less than two weeks. Where has the summer gone? Normally at this stage of summer we are enjoying a bumper crop of tomatoes. Not this year. Yeah, my favorite summer staple did not do so hot this year. There could be any of or a combination of three different reasons; the soil - too much composted cow manure, the heat - blossoms won't be pollinated when it is too hot, poor seedlings.

I redid the makeup of the soil in our raised beds this spring. I sifted out the larger rocks and added peat and composted cow manure to each bed. Perhaps I overdid it on the composted cow manure. If there is too much nitrogen in the soil tomato plants will not set fruit.

When nighttime temperatures hover around the 70s and daytime temps hit the 90s - tomato plants won't set fruit. The heat makes the pollen sterile. We had a ton of blossoms on our tomato plants when we had the one to two week stretch of daytime temps in or near 90 and nighttime temps in the 70s.

Our favorite greenhouse did not open this year due to the increased costs of propane which they use to heat the greenhouse. So we went with an untested supplier and I was not really happy with any of the plants we purchased in addition to the tomatoes. We were going to grow our own seedlings like the previous year, but time got away from us and we were too late. I won't make that mistake again.

We'll be purchasing our seeds from Park Seed once again. They have a great selection and I've been extremely pleased with the results in previous growing seasons.

Follow me on Twitter for extra updates

Well, you're probably asking yourself, "What is twitter and why should I follow you?" Twitter is like a blog only instead of unlimited characters (you know, letters, spaces and numbers ;) ) you are limited to 140 characters. It's been described as micro-blogging. I've been using it for brief updates on uploaded photos to the All Things Michigan photostream at flickr.com, new gift baskets, Squidoo pages, Michigan travel locales/deals, and many other "brief" items. Sometimes it is just to shout out that there is a new blog post here at All Things Michigan for those of you that have not subscribed.

So, if you're interested feel free to - Follow me on Twitter.

Old Michigan State Maps

I have long collected bits and pieces of Michigan memorabilia through numerous travels across the state. One thing that I never fail to grab is the new map issued each year by MDOT. Probably the most popular cover in recent years is the 2007 map featuring the 50th Anniversary of the Mackinac Bridge. Michigan maps issued by gas stations have become even more of a collector's item. Old Shell, Mobil, and other gas stations used to produce maps as an added benefit to travelers, but even more importantly as an advertising tool. The practice was discontinued just about the same time as Full Service due to increased production costs.

For more information on vintage Michigan maps you can purchase - Collecting Vintage Michigan Maps

Archives of Michigan Digital Collection

So I was on flickr last night (yes, again) looking at historic Michigan photos and came across this brief collection of photos from the Archives of Michigan. I followed the link to the Archives of Michigan and was surprised to see that they have a digital collection. Currently, they have a 586 photo collection of Michigan Lighthouses featured. As you can tell by our logo for Gift Baskets From Michigan I am just a wee bit interested in Michigan's historic lighthouses. In fact, I'm working on a little side project related to that thought - more to come on that at a future time.

Other items of note in this digital archive collection:

• Michigan Sheet Music
• Idlewild Photograph Collection
• A Handful of Oral Histories
• Photos of Civil War Soldiers
• Photos of Michigan Governors

Visit the Digital Archives of Michigan

That's it for today. Have a great weekend! :)