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Fall's best flavours. Kids at the cider press. Apples from your yard turned into cider you drink the same afternoon.This is not one event. It is three Saturdays across three Edmonton community leagues, and if you found this page you now know about all of them.
➜ The three pressing days
📍 Capilano, Saturday August 29, 11am to 4pm
On the edge of the river valley at Capilano Community League. Apple pressing, cider tasting, and the orchard blessing.
📍 Millhurst, Saturday September 19, 11am to 4pm
This event. Sakaw Gardens in southeast Edmonton, a community-grown space that hosted our very first press.
Bike-powered crushing on the Apple Annihilator, preservation demos, kids at the press, the orchard blessing, and a walk through the garden beds. One thing to watch, it runs at the Sakaw Gardens site and not the Millhurst hall.
📍 October 3, location to be announced
The season closes at a third community league. Follow this page and we will post it the moment it is confirmed.
Come to one. Come to all three. Nobody is counting.
➜ Why we bless the trees
Every fall Edmontonians gather to press apples, and then we stop and thank the trees that grew them. The orchard blessing revives wassailing, an old ritual where people sing to the apple trees, pour cider at their roots, and make enough joyful noise to call up next year's harvest. The word comes from the old Norse ves heill, be healthy, be whole.
It is a little silly. It is also the part your kids will still be talking about in November.
➜ Why families keep coming back
Children pedal the Apple Annihilator, our bike-powered fruit crusher, press the juice, and drink it right there. Families pick up simple ways to preserve fruit and cut waste. The smell of warm cider carries across the whole site.
Last season we pressed more than 6,000 pounds of rescued apples across three leagues and poured 1,020 litres of cider. Millhurst started that.
🍎 What to bring
🍎 Apples, if you have a tree. One 25L tote holds about 20 pounds, which fills faster than most people expect
🍎 A reusable mug for hot cider
🍎 Cozy layers, and a blanket if you want to picnic
Free, and no tickets required. Street and lot parking, paved paths, level entry, and a wheelchair-accessible portable toilet onsite. Playgrounds and green space nearby.
❤️ We need volunteers
Twenty pairs of hands covers this one. Someone washes fruit, someone feeds the Apple Annihilator, someone presses the mash and someone keeps the jugs and the line moving.
Good for families, teens, or anyone who likes a fall festival, and we will show you what to do on the spot. Sign up on our website if you can spare the afternoon. If you would rather just turn up and press, that is more than enough.
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5820 11A Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T6L, Canada
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