There are many that are adapted to your area. Many of the Florida adapted varieties also do fairly well there. "Walter" is an old standard and in the background of a few in the Mt series. Also: "Cherokee" "Piedmont" "Saturn" "Venus" "Monte Verde" 'Summit' "Early Market S.C" "Brian" "Floralina" "Marion" "Patriot" "Royal Mountie" "Plum Dandy" "Peto 882" "Sun leaper" "Talladega" more in the heirloom catagory would be "German Johnson" "Candystripe" "Homestead" "Victor" are all ones either adapted or grown in that area. If you look around in the seed companies (grower not gardener based marketing) you will see ones adapted for the SE/Mid Atlantic areas as this is a fairly large market outside of California and Florida.

Annie, I always thought the batter poured over the fruit was a more recent method. My mother made a bottom crust AND a top crust. The crust was always my favorite part of any pie, cobbler or not. No wonder bread is my favorite food. And..your thought about raising chickens being a factor in the egg custard is probably right. My Dad died when I was only 9. We had to move to a smaller place, and although we continued to live in the country we didn't have cows, but did raise chickens and at least one hog a year. I'm lovin' this thread...brings back a lot of good memories. That makes me think of something else. Did any of you all ever have fried raisin pies? I can remember coming home from school and smellin' those pies before I ever got in the door! jude

Chris, I'm not surprised your library doesn't have any Giles books. It has been several years since she died, and I'm not sure how widely read she was anyway. She was certainly popular here, though, and her books are still in our libraries and some of them in state park gift shops, etc. I'm sure you can find them on line. Some of her books are better than others, of course. I read a literary criticism of her work once that quoted her as saying she always wanted to write like Willa Cather, and the reviewer said she had succeeded--beautiful writing but she forgot to tell a story. (Sorry, Cather fans.) Mrs. Giles was also quoted as saying she should have been qualified to write because she had read a book a day for years. Sounds like some of us could qualify on those terms, doesn't it? Another of her KY series dealing with different characters is set in the mountains: The Enduring Hills, Miss Willie, and Tara's Healing.

Talk about hardiness zones, the location in question briefly joined the ranks of Z5-for that brief period where they abandoned the a and b designations,-but is now securely-and properly, in my opinion-back in Z4 where it belongs. Dawn redwoods don't do well there, Green Giants get off to a rousing start, only to frizzle fry later, when a cold winter happens. I've had a mild and unserious case of zone denial, even putting in a few "Zone 5" Chamaecyparis lawsoniana just a few years ago. Yes of course, those are dead! But none of that is really the issue. I just know how spring always kicks me in the butt. The list of many things is teetering as I write-all the things that pretty much must happen as soon as it warms up. So between the haskap bushes I've already ordered-and therefor will need to deal with, and the want on the part of family members to have the ability to cut Christmas trees from our land (And my desire to leave some fir trees grow on to maturity!), think I'm going to scale back for now. +oM