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axel_hb

Name your top favorite apples

Axel
14 years ago

It's the middle of grafting season, and now is a good time to review what are the best tasting apples. This is entirely subjective, of course, but as you post your list, please have your list conform to the following format:

1) top 5 Summer apples

Judged mainly by flavor, let's forget storage ability.

2) top 5 Winter storage apples

Here it's really all about flavor when coming out of storage and how well they store.

3) top 5 mid season apples, (mid Sept to mid October)

Here both flavor and storage can play a role.

4) Top 5 cookers

Favorite applez to cook with

So here are mine:

1) Top 5 Summer apples

- Viking, the only apple I've ever tasted with lychee flavor, truly delicious

- pristine, refreshing, yummy, strongly aromatic and very crisp

- gravenstein, a classic

- Sansa, anise flavored, delicious

- Zestar, very complex, crunchy, sweet

2) top 5 Winter storage apples

- pink lady, hands down winner, good off the tree in December, but unbelievably heavenly delicious out of the cooler in Feb all the way into the following Summer. I always regret not storing enough.

- Waltana, complex flavor, very unique, delicious

- Catherine, not really edible off the tree, but mellows really well in storage, then it's fantastic.

- Hauer pippin, nice aromatic flavor that holds well in storage, and even gets more pronounced

- lady williams, so far, the latest apple, coming off the tree in Feb, deliciously complex. (Also known as red Granny Smith)

3) Best mid season apples

- Mutsu, the all time Winner for me, Anise fennel oveetones with a nice sweet yet complex set of flavors

- Calville Rouge d'automne, wow, raspberry flavored, gets better in storage and keeps really well

- My Jewel, a wonderfully crisp banana flavored apple. It's way better than "Winter banana" and unlike "Winter Banana", it doesn't go soft and mealy. Stores into February and beyond in conventional 33F storage.

- jonagold, plain, simple, but so delicious I can eat a bunch in a row

- hudson's golden gem, great, yummy apple, almost pear flavored but doesn't store worth beans, so what they say about russet apples simply isn't true. But even if it doesn't store, it still deserves a spot in my top 5 mid season for best flavor.

Favorite cookers

- Belle De Boscoop, great texture for cooking, sharp enough so that it has nice complexity after getting cooked. It's really the only good cooking apple for true German apple pies.

- Allington pippin, nice complex flavor, excellent texture for cooking

- pink pearl, great pink fleshed color always gets a lot of attention, and it's delicious.

- gravenstein, great cooker, best apple sauce

- yellow transparent, yummy apple sauce, gets a spot for being earliest cooker to ripen

Comments (42)

  • myk1
    14 years ago

    I can't follow your format. Not enough varietal experience and it doesn't fit in with my uses.

    1) McIntosh, all around apple (pies, fresh, cider, sauce)

    2) Arkansas Black, cider, storage for fresh eating and production

    3) Newtown Pippin (I think), pies, sauce blends

    4) Cortland, fresh eating, cider, pies

    Funny thing, my niece has been trying to make pies for her husband who loves my pies. Her trees aren't producing yet and she only buys Delicious types at the Upick so the pies aren't turning out like mine.
    She asked what apples I use. "Yours", the pies I make that people like the most are from the year she gave me a bushel of the Newtown Pippins.

    I told her we can work on grafting it over to something for her like I'm trying to do for myself.

  • Axel
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    I forgot about newtown pippin, a great all purpose apple.

    I was trying to separate out the ripening times, because it's really not fair to compare a Summer apple with a Fall or Winter apple. They are so strikingly different. But cider versus sauce versus pie as categories might make sense.

    Oh well, doesn't seem like there is much interest in this topic anyway, everybody is too busy shopping and planting. Thanks for adding.

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  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    Axel, your choices are so connected to your location that I thought I should mention that they probably are of little guidance to people in most other parts of the country. We don't harvest apples in Dec.!

    In southeastern NY my criteria is much differnt than yours- partially because of personal tastes, of course, but also, as you know, the climate makes the apples taste different. Also, I really don't eat summer apples because there is so much other fruit to concentrate on. William's Pride and Ginger Gold seem really boring next to, say, a tree ripened necatrine, which will be unavailable most of the year. Apples will be my staple all fall and winter. I'll eat maybe 4 or 5 Sansa during it's entire season.

    No one here seems to bother even picking Yellow Transparent because most people don't feel like apple pie in early August- that's peach cobbler time. Old fasioned summer apples mostly rot around here.

    Apples that keep into winter are all I'm passionate about and this year after a terrible year for storing apples the only apple worth a dam that I grow is Goldrush. Funny, it was also the first year that Granny Smith tasted really good to me as after having a record cool and wet summer we had a very warm fall. They ripened up to my specs in late Nov.

    The warm Fall didn't help the quality of Breabern, Pink Lady, Jonagold, and many of my other faves, however, as they were all next to worthless.

    By the way, Jonagold can store very well if the weather is cool the month leading to harvest and picked just a bit green (they're still delicious out of storage, but not quite as sweet as tree-ripe). I notice that a lot of less dense apples are this way.

  • myk1
    14 years ago

    Hopefully I'll have a Summer Apple to try this year from my yard. I kind of doubt it but you never know.
    I also have a hard time calling early August a Summer Apple when the weather usually makes my McIntosh mid-late August.

    Since my main focus is either pie or cider I'll probably never have varietal experience to come up with a big list. I just hope the summer duds for pies make either good eating (which is possible because I like soft and tart) or good cider (probably not likely since I thought a small amount of Jonathan ruined my cider).

  • glenn_russell
    14 years ago

    News at 11:00: Harvestman stops 'dissing Granny Smith! I never thought I'd see the day! Hahhahah! -G

  • dethride
    14 years ago

    I have no summer apples, but my Spitzenberg ripens around the first week in September and is the best apple I've ever tasted. Can't get 'em to store, though.

    A perfectly ripened, fresh, Golden Delicious off my 17 year-old Stark Bros. tree is something to experience. I wrote the cardboard grocery store ones off as a child, vowing never to eat another... until I grew my own.

    I hope to critique Mutsu, Ark. Black, Fuji, Newtown Pippin, and Ashmead's Kernal this year. And perhaps a Grimes Golden, Fall Russet, Hudson's Golden Gem, and Pomme Gris in the near future.

    I tried Goldrush from our local large, commercial orchard, Mercier's, and it tasted like a slightly crisp, but on-it's-way-out G. Delicious. A disappointment. I am wondering whether to add it to my orchard. Jellyman and others sing it's praises from the same 6/7 zone, so there's something to them, I'm sure. They are storing fairly well in my fridge, but I eat half and the rest go to my chickens.

  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    Don't ever use store bought for evalutation. Golden Delicious is a bland and boring apple, IME, compared to Goldrush- and GR has the brix to back me up. The old strain, russeted YD are palatable- and I've tried them from many trees, many sites, but to my palate not worth eateing more than 1 a season. Of course this is a long way from GA but I still believe that anyone that adores YD must not like acid with that sugar because it is probably the least acidic apple I've ever eaten besides Poundsweet. It is high on the aromatics, however, and is very distinctly flavored. I don't see how a longer growing season could change its low acidity.

    As far as Granny Smith, I've always heard and believed it's a great apple in the right climate. I wish I could grow it properly with consistency- wish they could in eastern Washington for that matter. Of course, some people love GS when it is at a point I don't cosider it ripe. We're all just stuck with our own tastes.

    I used to think Mutsu was the cat's pajamas and then switched allegience to Fuji. Now I consider both fairly bland Mutsus particularly so out of storage. Maybe as we age some of us need more wallup to notice. Ashmeads and other acidic apples now thrill me most.

    That list would include Baldwin, Roxbbury Russet, Pink Lady, Braebern, Cox, and similar off-spring like Kidd's Orange Red- also Jonathon which I consider the first really good tart of the season here (of the small percentage of apples I've tried).

    Some of the sweets I enjoy are Hudson's Golden Gem, Fuji, Golden Russet, Honeycrisp, and Jonagold.

    I would never attempt a rigid list of favorite apples, I'm just not smart enough to hold the incredible variety of flavors in my head and sort them out that way. Also in our climate many apples vary greatly from season to season.

    As far as baking- texture is more important to me than anything and lots of apples work for wonderful pie with the right crust- I'll not try to sort that one out either, but I like a mix of tarts and sweets in my pie. Jonagold and Mutsu fill that bill. Many tarts do as well- this year it's Goldrush for me, as well as a few N. Spy I got around to storing.

  • Axel
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Harvestman, you are right, but what you say is true of everyone else too. Apples are tied to location. Here, our best apples are Summer apples and Winter apples. We have perhaps the best Summer apple climate in the country, 70's during the day, with 40's to 50's at night, who can complain? That's why I have such a big focus on Summer apples. They actually store well here, that's how cool our Summers are. I classify Summer apples everything that ripens with or before Gravenstein. Anything after is really a Fall apple.

    Did I mention that our first apples, the low chill Anna from Israel and dorsett golden from the bahamas ripen in late May, and our last apple, Sundowner, ripens in mid February? That's one heck of a long apple growing season. As we speak, Dorsett Golden and Anna are almost done blooming. I have tonns of peaches, and yes, they are delicious, but apples are always welcome because they have such a low glycemic index. Too many peaches can be really bad for blood sugar levels.

    But by far the best apples are the apples that ripen the latest, when the trees start to turn colors, and when night time temps dip into the 30's and 40's. For different areas of the country, that's a different time of the year. Hence the amazingly tasty McIntosh's in upstate NY, yet horribly bland McIntoshs here in California

    But then, nobody can beat our yellow colored granny smiths that ripen in January, our pink ladys, which also ripen early January, or Lady Williams, which ripens early February, or better yet, Sundowner, which ripens mid February. Let me tell you, granny smith is anything but a cooking apple. It is one of the tastiest dessert apples around, with a delicious blend of sugars and acids. But picked green, I find it horrible, and useless as a cooking apple too because a cooked green granny smith is rubbery like a shoe sole.

    Our Fall apples don't live up to what they could be, because our Summer here peaks in October, that's when it's hottest, 80's during the day and mid 60's at night. So the flavor and storage quality goes down the tube. Thankfully a lot of Fall apples show a lot of heat resistance.

    BTW, I have yellow transparent, and I really like it, the only trouble is that there is about a 6 hour window when the apple is really good. Before that it's too acid, after that it goes mealy. But when it's right, it's really yummy!

  • rosessecretgarden
    14 years ago

    Well that is quite Subjective and lengthy :D
    I mean is that even necessary that every other people might have 5 favorite summer apples and then 5 favorite winter apples and ll what you want. I mean i do not have that much of favorites for apples... ;)

    1) Summer apples
    I like Summer Pippin, Pie Apple
    and that's it :D
    SOrry for disappointing you but that is only my favorite apple :)

  • Scott F Smith
    14 years ago

    Axel, I also am not growing as many summer apples but have been recently adding a few to see if any do well. Here are some current favorites in your categories.

    Summer / Early fall
    St. Edmunds Russet - I'm not 100% sure this is the variety name due to mislabeling but its an early russet that is the first "wow" apple I get - it tastes as good as the later russets but comes early.
    Freyburg - I love this apple, hugely aromatic and does taste like 1/2 Cox and 1/2 Yellow Del, its parents.

    Mid
    Kidds Orange Red - a good performing Cox school apple for me, in fact currently my favorite of that school; lacks the cloying sweetness that Cox school apples can have.
    Swayzie - my favorite midseason russet at the moment but I have not had enough samples. It has both the nutty taste of e.g. Egremont Russet and some of the aromatics like Freyburg.
    Hewes crab - small size and small window of underripe to overripe but I love eating them and hope to be making cider from them. For most people this is probably not an eating apple, it is quite strong-flavored and a bit mealy when the flavor is best.
    Margil - has an intensely nutty flavor. I have not had enough of them yet to properly evaluate.

    Late (note I am calling this late not keepers since I don't yet have good storage for keeping)
    Abbondanza - to me this one tastes like rose petals when properly ripened. It vastly oversets and needs to be thinned like crazy (you can see where its name comes from). I have had problems with astringency some years but last year I thinned like crazy and had no astringency.
    Wickson - when these guys are ripe they taste like a peach/apricot/apple cross; quite extraordinary. Very small and prone to cracking and loving of CAR.
    White Winter Pearmain - needs to be picked very late but at that point they have a wonderful aromatic taste.
    Gold Rush - I like these best well tree-aged but not cellared. They are still very good cellared but lose the unique spicy flavor of the long-hanging ones.

    Cooking
    Blenheim Orange - my favorite cooker at this point; very rich flavor
    Reine des Reinettes - also an excellent cooker, more for tarts.
    Bramley - another great cooker with a unique flavor I like a lot.

  • ashleysf
    14 years ago

    Axel, I am not an apple fan. In fact, never liked them. And have very little experience with the types that you mention. I shop at the farmer's market and Whole Foods and have never even seen some of the varieties you listed sold locally.
    I prefer oranges and peaches and nectarines anyway. But, I have learned to keep an open mind as I grow older! So, a few years ago, I started eating apples. I only liked the taste of Red Fuji to begin with. Then, I loved those Cuyama grown Pink Lady apples. Recently, I like the HoneyCrisp apples (why is it not mentioned on this thread by anybody??) and Empire and Gala and Braeburn. I cannot eat a Granny Smith. But it is good for cooking (in soups etc).
    I have a Red Fuji and Pink Lady apple tree added to my plantings in my yard and hope to get more. I have come a long way, from hating apples to growing them in the precious little space in my yard.
    But, I would never cook with apples (pies, tarts, sauce etc) - just not my cup of tea.
    So, one day, I will come back here with a long list, just like you. But, not yet :)

  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    Ashley, I did mention Honeycrisp although it doesn't need any endorsement from me- it seems to be every non-apple obsessive's favorite new apple and here in NY has become the #2 moneymaker for local growers after Gala.

    This forum, and particularly this topic, is primarily aimed at the serious apple maniac, I think. We are mostly talking about the apples we grow- not buy. Not that I don't welcome your input.

  • ashleysf
    14 years ago

    Thank you harvestman - I did go back and see that you mentioned Honeycrisp.
    It is hard to choose and grow apples if you cannot buy them and taste them first. Which is the reason for my post - can anyone tell me where I can get some of these great varieties that people rave about so I can catch the apple mania too? Descriptions in catalogs are so misleading and only for the imaginative (which is not me).

  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    Ashley, Trees of Antiquity has a great selection and are only a couple hundred miles from you. The owner couple are extremely nice. Most of us order from such nurseries and recieve the small trees through the mail. T of A has a web site.

    For tasting, I suggest you go to Santa Cruz and knock on Axel's door. He's probably one of only a handful of Californians that grow so many wonderful varieties.

  • olpea
    14 years ago

    Axel wrote:

    "I have tons of peaches, and yes, they are delicious, but apples are always welcome because they have such a low glycemic index. Too many peaches can be really bad for blood sugar levels."

    Axel, As an aside, peaches have about the same brix as apples, so I don't think peaches can have a higher glycemic index. I think the higher glycemia comes from eating too many peaches. It's not difficult to eat lots of peaches at one sitting and suffer the consequences of a headache (and a colon cleansing event).

    :-)

  • Axel
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Ashley, the CRFG Monterey Bay will have both a Summer apple tasting around mid August and a Fall/Winter apple tasting in the late Fall. Most of the best apples I grow I discovered by tasting in fellow CRFG members' gardens. I've also now ventured off into uncharted territory with more than 500 varieties growing in my orchard. The winners and loosers are starting to emerge.

    Olpea, the glycemic index is a function of how fast the sugar gets absorbed. Apples have much more fiber than a peach, hence the lower glycemic index. My wife is always amazed as to my ability to eat 10 peaches in one sitting without any consequences. :) It's a wonderful benefit of having grown up in an orchard. I can't wait for peach season to begin, there truly is no substitute.

  • denninmi
    14 years ago

    Please stop this thead. Shut it down, Now!

    You guys are just killing me. :-)

    I don't have room for any more apple trees.

    Saw 3 or 4 things on the list that sound like "gotta try this" varieties.

    Just read through the comments: "tastes like lychee" - "tastes like rose petals" - tastes like apricot/peach/apple"

    I really have GOT to learn to graft! Gotta!

  • Axel
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    denninmi, this is a disease, try not to catch apple fever. Symptoms include amassing hundreds of apple varieties and spending extended periods on Spring weekends grafting. Apples have such an amazing diversity in flavors, textures and colors that it's hard to resist.

    BTW, yes, Viking is definitely a lychee flavored apple here in Coastal Central California, it's quite an amazing apple, but it doesn't keep, so you have to eat them pretty much right away.

  • ashleysf
    14 years ago

    thanks, axel. I will try to attend local CRFG apple tastings to see what it is that you guys are raving about :)
    500 varieties of apple in your yard??? Multi-grafted, I assume. That is truly uncharted territory. How do you keep track of them all?

  • dethride
    14 years ago

    H'man, I know I'm an amateur "apple maniac", and I haven't had the chance to taste many of the hundreds of varieties out there.

    My russeted GD almost didn't get transplanted (it was six years old! I'm lucky it survived.) when it was offered to me because of the memories of only ONE decent tasting GD in my past, but when they're picked at peak, I delight in them. But like I said, I'm a plebian newbie! Please forgive me, for I knoweth not what I ain't tasted!

    By "store-bought", you mean even the ones from the local big orchard? I take your comment to mean if one has a tree in his backyard, he's going to pick on his terms and get optimum ripeness, not a production run.

    Those folks at Mercier (local big orchard) are pretty sharp, do you think if I hopped their fence and swiped an apple or two once a week in the G. Rush season, I'd get a better idea of what they taste like? Or, do they need to store a bit to flavor up?

    Herbert

  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    Herbert, Goldrush is good off the tree but if it tastes too sharp for you put some in the fridge with some holes punched in plastic. Like GD they shrivel in dry storage. They also sweeten up.

    The reason I don't like Golden Delicious isn't because I have sophisticated taste- I just need more wallup because my buds probably aren't as sensitive. I'm just happy when people find pleasure in eating any kind of apple.

    The only Goldrush apples I ever bought tasted awful- I'm not even sure they were true to name. They just looked so beautiful- mine are always covered with summer fungus. Goldrush is a real sponge for sooty blotch.

  • Axel
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    I've tasted outstanding golden delicious apples, but they had to be fully tree ripened and then eaten right off the tree. It's a great breeding apple, because you can use it to mellow other sharp apples in a cross.

    Scott, is StEdmund's russet the same as St Edmund's pippin? Here in California, mine didn't russet at all, we are very dry during the Summer. It's a beautiful apple here. Incidentally, neither nonesuch and knobbed russet look anything like what I've seen in pictures when grown here. Here they look like normal, clean, smooth skinned apples with no blemishes. But many other apples russet just fine here.

    I've had no luck with store bought goldrush, they were horrible. You have to grow this one yourself. In fact, I think that's true of most apples. Very few store bought apples do justice to whatever variety is being sold. I've had better luck with organic apples at health food stores - the apples there are often much more flavored and delicious than the same varieties conventional grown at regular grocery stores. I have a hard time believing it's the organic factor that makes them taste better, my thinking is that the organic growers are simply more careful to pick the apples at the right time to make sure they retain their prime quality.

    The one and only apple that turned out better at the store than in my garden has been Empire. Mine tasted like apple candy, the store bought canadian ones had the yummy aromatic mcIntosh flavors.

  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    Scott, anyone can store apples. If you don't have a good place to put them now, dig holes on the N. side of your house large enough to burry lidded trash cans or other storage containers with a tight lid. Metal will deter rodents. By the time your latest apples ripen the soil will be quite cool and this will work better than a defrosting refrig.

  • Scott F Smith
    14 years ago

    Axel, yes St. Ed's Pippin/Russet are same. That may in fact not be what I have, its an early russet that is completely russeted for me every time; it was mislabeled as something else so I'm not sure what it really is. I am grafting a real St. Eds to it this spring for comparison.

    Hman, the main problem at this point is lack of production really, not lack of a place to store -- I can eat all of the late apples. But that ground method sounds like it is worth a try, I have a good north side.

    Scott

  • strudeldog_gw
    14 years ago

    Dethride,

    As I set reading these I am eating a Goldrush from Mercier's not as good as it was in November. I like that acidic bite like Harvestman. I have 2 in the ground but they are young like all of my plantings. We must be neighbors, and from looking at your page growing alot of the same fruit as well.

  • dethride
    14 years ago

    Strudedog,

    Just before I sat down to read I cut up my last Goldrush... and fed it to my chickens! I also like a bite to my apples and was expecting it from my G'rush's, but all I got was a strange G. Delicious taste. Not bad, just not the sweet-tart I was looking for. I tend to like nutty-ness in my apples as well and I look forward to my Ashmead's finally coming online.

    I'm in Mineral Bluff, where are you, sir?

    Herbert

  • strudeldog_gw
    14 years ago

    Herbert,

    I am in between Ellijay and Blue Ridge off of Boardtown road in the Whitepath Area. I planted a Ashmead's Kernal last year as well. It didn't start out very vigorous. At least I don't think the Voles gnawed on that one this winter. early on the GoldRush was great, but that was back in November. I finally got around to edit my member page so that gives a pretty good Idea what I'm growing, even though it seemed to ignore my formating and just blurbed everything together. The Nut trees have been in for a while everything else is 1st or 2nd year. I make it up around you pretty often. My son and I put in the Toccoa (wading) at Curtis's Switch when trout fishing

  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    If you want to store your southern version of Goldrush, you might try picking them a bit early. I think you'll find them more flavorful out of storage that way. Best off-tree ripe is often not best out of storage. My Goldrush never get bland in storage- probably becuase I can't get them fully ripe in southeastern NY. Still I like em off the tree as much as out of storage.

  • wally_1936
    14 years ago

    Well I am glad one of my ancestors make all you happy. Johnny Chapman was a nut but sure got the apple business going great. When we lived in Michigan I got to enjoy a lot of different apples and as one of you said, store bought just won't touch the taste of a good apple as they have to look good and last a long time, even if they are mealy by the time we get to eat them, but they don't put on the market one apple that takes about three months before it is good eating. We had Staman, Winesap, Jonathan's and snow except for the snow make great cider, pie or just plain eating anytime A fresh apple off the tree beats any you can buy in the stores that is unless you live in a area where the local orchards are and can get them right after harvest. Some of the great tastine apples don't look "nice" some even have "warts" on them but great eating.
    Now living in Texas I don't eat as many as I did in Michigan. I try to make up for this with my satsuma's around Thanksgiving and Christmas as I can pick them for well over a month unless we have a freeze like this year.
    Thanks for all the memories
    Paul

  • cinsay
    14 years ago

    I must admit that I'm not really a fan of fresh apples. So I classify my favorites by cooking use instead of summer/winter.

    Apple sauce: Paula Red - good flavor and breaks down quickly.
    Apple rings: Ginger Gold (ripe)- good flavor when dried (not too sweet or tart and not bland), turns brown (oxidizes?) slowly.
    Apple pie: Melrose - good depth of flavor and tartness and doesn't turn to mush. I also really like Cortland for pies but if you mix these two the Cortland will soften way before the Melrose during baking.

    I do think that Ginger Gold only half ripe is a good eating apple though. My kids love them when they're still green. They have a nice bite and strong apple flavor. Sorry I can't be more desciptive - I've not really developed a palate for tasting flavor notes. Not for apples or wine or anything.

    This is a fun thread but I agree, now I'm itching to try growing more types of apples.

    Cindy

  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    Ginger Gold is an apple that can be eaten unripe which contributes to its usefulness in the home orchard as it has a very long picking time. It is a very good summer apple here for flavor alone. Starts out as a bit of a tart and becomes a sweet right before it gets too soft. Most of my customers actually like it more than William's Pride.

    I recently read an article describing new apple varieties on-line provided by U.Mass and they said the same thing about Shamrock, I believe it was. They even named the compound that makes apples taste chalky when unripe, but the word escapes me.

  • maryneedssleep
    14 years ago

    Scott,
    I've never heard of an Abbondanza apple. Where did you get yours? Does it have another name?

    While there's a bunch of apple collectors reading -- anyone know where to get a Hokuto (Fuji x Mutsu) apple tree? I ordered some fruit from Applesource and it was amazing -- the hands-down favorite among about a dozen varieties. Cummins mentions the Hokuto on their website but does not seem to be selling it.

  • Scott F Smith
    14 years ago

    Mary, Abbondanza is not very common. I got it from the USDA and I think Botner has it as well. Both as scionwood only so you have to learn to graft. The way that it sometimes gets tannic makes it pretty much a non-starter for todays apple eaters, people don't like any tannin in their apples anymore. They run to it in their red wine and run from it in their apples, go figure.

    Scott

  • jayco
    14 years ago

    I can tell you something about Goldrush. We bought these from a local orchard last year and loved them so much we got ourselves a tree last spring. The apples were tart and spicy with an undertone of sweetness, really complex and lovely. And crisp. Then this year we bought a bunch more from the same orchard, and they were larger, sweeter, less complex, and not nearly as good. I have no idea why. Were they off different trees, or was it just the growing season? All I can say is that they have been both sublime and unimpressive in my experience. I certainly hope our tree will produce the sublime ones!

  • Axel
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    That's the whole thing about commercial versus heirloom apples: the heirloom apples are highly unreliable, being great one year and not so good other years. The finally selected commercial apples are good every time, but at the cost of being great one year like heirlooms. Only the true apple aficionado who grows his own will ever get to experience the full potential of an heirloom variety.

    IMHO the variability is part of the appeal.

  • myk1
    14 years ago

    "IMHO the variability is part of the appeal."

    Ah yes, that year was a very good vintage.

  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    Axel, I generally agree that nowadays no one goes to the expense of patenting and releasing a variety unless they're quite certain that they can consistantly obtain high quality in a wide range of climates, but that doesn't mean that they don't vary greatly in quality season to season. Goldrush was released as a commercial variety and it might just still make it (even if it's too late for royalties).

    The season before last my Braeberns were exquisite while this year they were completely worthless- really annoying because I had a great crop. The person here complaining about the quality of Goldrush this year doesn't seem to realize that we barely had a summer in NY last season, and in Z5 there just wasn't enough heat to properly ripen Goldrush.

    Of course I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

  • jayco
    14 years ago

    I think that person was me... though I wasn't exactly complaining, just making an observation because some people upthread disliked Goldrush. And it's true I am a novice and understand little about what a particular variety of apple needs to ripen properly. Our McIntosh did just fine, so I'm presuming that's because they're an earlier variety? And a late variety like GoldRush needs a hot summer to ripen properly?

    I hate hot summers, so if that's the case at least it'll give me something to like about the heat.

  • Axel
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    True, even the commercial varieties are susceptible to bad years. But there are some varieties that are very similar from one year to the next, examples are (should I dare mention) golden delicious, red delicious, jonagold, Yes, it's the "bland" ones. I am surprised Braeburns would turn out bad, though. That seems like a very reliable variety.

  • alan haigh
    14 years ago

    In the east Jonagold is known for being fairly unreliable quality-wise. When fall is too wet and warm the apples can be truly bland. I don't consider JG to be bland on a good year- the Jonathon in it gives it some zip, expecially if nights are cool as it ripens and days aren't too hot. It's a pretty big flavored apple.

    I believe that where you have rain during the growing season quality tends to be much more variable for most varieties- even possibly Golden Delicious- I just don't pay much attention to that one.

    No 2 apple fanatics should agree on the taste of any variety IMO, even if they're growing them in the same climate.

  • drasaid
    14 years ago

    is fabulous. Bright yellow, huge, and divine.
    I saved the seeds to plant (ridiculous, I know. But dang that apple was heavenly.)

  • tallclover
    13 years ago

    Here are some pics and summaries of favorite apple trees I grow from Bramley's Seedling to York.

    Photos in link below.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Favorite and Best Apples I Grow