Elizabeth Blake and her family enjoy a U-pick on Labour Day at an apple orchard north of Charlottetown. (CBC)

Apple growers in the Maritimes are relieved after finding Hurricane Earl did minimal damage to their crop Saturday.

It is a sharp contrast to what happened during Hurricane Juan in 2003.

"When Juan came through I would say about maybe 60 or 70 per cent of my apples were on the ground, as well as some of my trees uprooted," said Mark Ashley of Wintermoor Orchard in York, north of Charlottetown.

Ashley said he will be busy scooping about 800 kilograms of apples off the ground this week — maybe 10 per cent of his crop — after a weakened Earl blew through.

"There's a lot of back breaking, just get out there, bend over and start firing apples into baskets and clean it all up afterwards," he said.

"That'll take me most of the week."

Mark Ashley of Wintermoor Orchard in P.E.I. expects a bumper apple crop, even after Earl. (CBC)

Excellent growing conditions have led to a bumper crop on the Island this year, and Ashley believes plenty of apples will still be on the trees.

"We had an excellent spring, there was heavy pollination, perfect growing conditions, so there was a bumper crop this year," Ashley said.

In Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, grower Phil Daniels said Earl caused little crop loss in his orchard, and the trees needed the rain that came with the storm.

That's good news for Elizabeth Blake, who was out with her family on a sunny Labour Day, enjoying the U-pick at Wintermoor, P.E.I.

"We did come here, we did think about the storm, and thought I wonder how the apples made out?" Blake said. " I don't really see a difference because of the storm or anything."

There are still a couple months of both apple picking and hurricane season ahead. Ashley hopes that if another hurricane does come along, it will pass as lightly through his orchard as Earl did.