East Lyme― Granny smith, Gala, Empire, Macoun and Red Delicious were the five apples the Cacace family, of Waterford, knew they had to take home with them Sunday.

So said 11-year-old Brayden Cacace, as he and his family strolled between rows of trees with four bags of apples. Every year his family, going apple picking, makes a list first for what kind they’re after.

“We basically like every apple,” he admitted.

They were far from the only ones.

Apple orchard and farmstand Scott’s Yankee Farmer was busy Sunday with families picking their own apples, walking the corn maze or taking horse- or tractor-drawn wagon rides. The farm is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. Customers paid $3 per person for admission to the pick-your-own orchard, and then paid $2.39 per pound for the apples.

“This is doughnut and apple season,” Colin Scott, one of the owners of the farm, said as he scraped some doughnut dough out of the bowl of a kitchen mixer. “This is our busiest time of the year.”

Inside the farm stand, Scott worked from a small room making the dough, frying the doughnuts and sugaring them. The smell of freshly fried cinnamon sugar doughnuts wafted in the air.

The smell just outside, in the surrounding orchard, was nearly as potent ― one that rose up from the cracked and rotten apples that had been dropped from rows upon rows of trees. Abby Sheehan, who manages the farm stand, said the apples are left there to refertilize the soil. So it all comes full circle.

Through the fallen apples and tall grass between the rows of trees, 3-year-old Olivia Hyde picked apples for the first time with her grandparents, Barbara Goodrich and Bruce Hyde, of New London.

“Oh! I see a beautiful apple right there!” Goodrich exclaimed, as Bruce leaned closer and Olivia, poised on his shoulders, reached out to grab it.

She placed it in the bag that Goodrich held, full of apples she said would be eaten or turned to apple sauce.

“The apples are at least 10 steps above what you get in the grocery store,” she said.

Sheehan said that “fresh-picked feeling,” is part of what continues to draw customers back to the farm this time of year. A lot of supermarket produce has been shipped, she said.

“Who knows when it was picked?” she added.

Brayden Cacace, along with mother Emily and brothers Nolan, 7, and Gavin, 9, each carried their own bag, which combined for enough apples to last their family a week. They only eat them ― no pies.

Cacace says good apples are never on the first tree. You have to walk down the aisles, he says, and look up high.

“That’s where the best ones are,” he added.

Karen Scott, another of the farm’s owners, said the farm has “an apple for everybody.”

The farm has 24 different varieties of apples to choose from. But she and Sheehan agreed that the most popular are Macouns and Honeycrisps.

“Right now the apples are really hard, and tart,” Scott said, adding that they’d soften in a few more weeks.

Colin Scott said the process to grow those apples is year-round, and involves springtime pruning and spraying on fungicides to prevent fungus.

Although the past few months have been particularly dry, Scott said that doesn’t much affect the apple crop, which turned out “good this year.” He worries that since many apple trees are biennial producers, that means next season won’t be as good.

Scott, who was making 2,000 cinnamon doughnuts Sunday, said Columbus Day weekend will be the busiest time of year for the farm. On Columbus Day he’ll make 4,000, he said.

“We’re ready to rock and roll,” he says confidently.

The pick-your-own area will close Oct. 27, Karen Scott said, but the stand will remain open longer.

d.drainville@theday.com