Apple picking season is officially upon us, even after an unusually dry spring and summer for Maine. 

The fruits are growing a little slower than usual, but growing nonetheless. The heat and slim pickings kept a lot of people away today, but that should be changing soon, once the weather cools down and the apples can grow.

The new apple this year is the Zestar — an earlier-season sweet apple, similar to a Honeycrisp. 

Peak season for apples will be mid to late September, weather dependent. That’s when the largest variety of apples will be ready and taste their best.

Peak season is still marked by when the Honeycrisps are ready.

The apples may be small right now, but they’re waiting to be eaten — or baked or pureed. 

“This year is going excellent; I couldn’t ask for better,” Peter Ricker of Wallingford’s Fruit House said. “For us, the drought wasn’t a big problem, since we use irrigation. People are picking most everything here.”

He said they don’t restrict what people can pick, even if they aren’t ripe or ready yet.

“If they like the taste, they can get it,” he said. “We usually just say, ‘There’s a couple hundred acres, have fun.'”

He said a lot of people come back year after year and tend to pick in the same spots.

Boothby’s in Livermore was doing alright, though.

“I think we’re gonna do really good,” Denise Boothby, owner of Boothby’s Orchard said Saturday. “There’s some apples in the back that are a little small, from the drought, but they’re sizing up now. 

“People come for our silver corn so that helps bring them in at the beginning of the season,” she said.  

Most of the Maine orchards grow eight major varieties with a smattering of heirloom trees. 

Many of the other local orchards were slower today, or not even open yet. The late start doesn’t seem to stumping everyone, though. Some families just took advantage of the beautiful day to play in the orchard. 

Derek and Sariah Simkowitz hung out at Wallingford’s Fruit House Saturday afternoon, playing on the pirate ship playhouse and swings with their two-year-old daughter, Ella.

“She’s basically made of rubber,” Derek said. “She’s a little daredevil.”