Andy: You don't really say if this Mac seedling stuff is just a fun project for you and your daughter to share, or a serious attempt to grow out apple trees that would replicate McIntosh. If it's just for fun, I think it's a great idea, but it is not the way to grow apples, McIntosh or any other. Nearly all apples require cross-pollination to set fruit, which means that the next (seedling) generation will produce apples that are all over the map in size, flavor, and overall quality. Reversion to small, tart crab type apples is a common result. Nearly all apple trees sold these days are grafted to dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstocks that both limit their size and induce earlier fruiting of the trees. Seedling trees can grow quickly, and will ultimately result in very large trees -- on the order of 40 feet or more at maturity. At the same time, initiation of fruiting on seedling trees is significantly delayed. That means you may wait ten years or more for blossoms and fruit to appear, only to be seriously disappointed when you find the apples do not resemble McIntosh in any way. So you will have to have a lot of room and a lot of patience if you are to grow out these three little trees to the fruiting stage. By that time, your little daughter will be in college. So as long as your daughter is interested, you can grow out the trees in your yard, but don't let them become too large or you will have a hell of a time getting them out. And don't worry, you shouldn't have any problems with rapid growth, though no one will be able to tell you just how rapid. Do not try to do this indoors or in pots. Apple trees require the seasonal changes and dormancy that accompany outdoor growth. Meanwhile, if you want to grow apples on a tree that stands a good chance of bearing in 3-4 years in your climate, buy a nursery tree of the variety of your choice grafted to a dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstock. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I open the Malathion label or look them up online and see warnings that say either that it will injure McIntosh and Cortland or that it will injure McIntosh and Cortland if sprayed 4 weeks from harvest. If I had already sprayed them with Malathion I would know what the injury looked like, whatever wasn't there before spraying :) The new this year problems I have are on my Cortland, McIntosh and Arkansas Black, with the Black getting the worst of it so I'm assuming that has nothing to do with the orchard spray and everything to do with the overly rainy year. I'm trying to figure out if the warning is about an "OMG, those are inedible" or "it's better than apple maggot" type injury. The last time I sprayed the orchard spray I had a lot of drops so I'd like to use something different later in the season. Other than the assortment of warnings of injury I find nothing describing it by googling.

Harvestman, Spartan is on the list I originally posted, I really enjoy this apple. When I looked it up, it's parentage is Yellow Newtown X McIntosh, same as for newtosh. The only apple I found that is a MCIntosh X Cox is an obscure apple named "Barry". I don't know anything about it. I was surprised to have a difficult time finding a McIntosh X Golden Delicious cross, most likely because of the difference in flowering time, but golden delicious blooms over a longer period of time, so it should be doable. Scott, here are the clusterings I am starting to see - of course, take with a grain of salt, this is hard to do. 1) Sweet sugar apples: Golden delicious, red delicious, jonagold, vanilla pippin, dorsett golden, Hawaii, Hudson's Golden gem, crown prince rudolf, cinnamon spice (delicious, this is surely a seedling of golden delicious), honeycrisp, fuji, and a whole army of Japanese crosses. 2) Yellow Transparent apples: that includes yellow transparent, transparent to croncels, Winter banana, and a few other obscure apples. They all have the property that the skin is transluent, and they are either flat in flavor, but good texture if picked too early, or very sweet but mealy if picked too late, and they all share the property that they have a very small window of perfection, on the order of hours with yellow transparent, and on the order of a couple of days with Winter banana. 3) The culinary apples with cidery flavors: A synonym for this is the "gravenstein" school, cidery, good balance of acids and sugars but typically more on the acid side. To me, this includes red berlepsh, ananas reinette, orleans reinette, belle de boscoop, spigold, Anna, york, st. edmunds pippin, allington pippin, Waltana, the list goes on and on. These all have those classic, old world "cider cave" flavors, they are very "earthy" apples. I think this is the same as the Scott "Cloche" school. 4) Harvestman's dense fleshed apples, to me, they're all one school that includes pink lady, granny smith, lady williams, braeburn, Hauer pippin, sundowner, and so on. They are all late, store incredibly well, have very well balanced sugars and acids, on the acid side when picked immature but still of very good quality, and on the sugary side when tree ripened, a.k.a. granny smith for example. 5) The cox school, can't forget that one. That includes cox, arlet, rubinette, lamb abbey pearmain, and so on. These are typically early Fall apples that have limited storage capabilities, and have very rich flavors, if I have to think of a flavor descriptor, I come up with the word "dense", as in very concentrated. They are not "light" apples. You can't just eat one casually, they really draw your attention to what's happening in your mouth. 6) The strawberry school, these are mostly Summer apples with a lot of strawberry overtones. Pink pearl is a classic there, if you juice it, you will get a strawberry flavored pink colored apple juice, and the strawberry flavor isn't imagined because of the pink color, it's really there. A number of English Summer apples also fall into this category, so does Summer rambo. There are several other schools, one is the anise flavored school from France, it's not that popular due to the fact that a good 30% of the population has an aversion to anise/licorice aromatics. Another one is the rasberry school, dominated by calville rouge d'automne, firm, red skinned, dominantly acidic but simple flavored with rasberry overtones. I know there are others, but I haven't found them yet. Then there is the "potato" school, or peasant school for lack of a better descriptor. Dominated by anktonova, these are apples that are rugged, starchy, coarse, I'd almost use the word "medieval", the sort of thing you'd expect to find on a rugged old wood dining table in the Russian countryside. They are mostly processing apples that are barely good enough as culinary apples. I put York in the gravenstein school, but I think it also belongs here. I am sure there are many more schools, but these are the ones that jump out at me.

I don't have a warming drawer, but am planning on one in our new home. I want it for proofing bread, making yogurt, keeping foods warm till serving time, warming plates, I'm looking at the DCS because it seems to be the deepest and should be able to hold my crock while proofing bread dough. If the temp goes high enough, I think it could also hold my canning jars while waiting to be filled. So I'm sure I'd be using it several times daily. Currently I use my Excalibur dehydrator for a good deal of defrosting of frozen foods; and I also use it for quickly drying my blender container, my olive oil jar, and plastic tupperwares. But I think the warming drawer might function almost as well and would hold a lot more.