There is no comparison there, Grimes is bulletproof compared to Hudson’s. Hudson’s is s very unique apple, the flesh has a texture not like any apple I have ever eaten. But that also seems to make it uniquely susceptible to bugs and diseases.
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Thanks I had already ordered the hudsons, but I placed a order with trees of antiquity for grimes, roxbury rusett and johnathon. I forgot to mention earlier when I listed my apples that I also have suncrisp. I think this will complete my collection, at least for now. If you know what I mean
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Only too well.
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I went to this weekend’s festival at Distillery Lane Ciderworks and was rewarded.
I got my first opportunity to taste the Pixie Crunch apple, and it was AWESOME!!! These apples have an incredible breaking crunchy juicy texture and unique complex flavor that blew me away! My wife tried them too, and said “this is as good as any apple I’ve tried.” High praise coming from such a contrarian! Here are the goodies I picked up:
Front left: Roxbury Russet
Middle left: Zestar
Rear left: Grimes Golden
Middle bottom: English Golden Russet
Second from right: Pixie Crunch
Far right: Blue Pearmain
The owner has finally grown his first proper-looking batch of Blue Pearmains-- an impressive feat for anyone south of the Mason-Dixon. I will sample those later this evening…
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Looks good, Matt! I am probably going to be heading out that way at some point this fall to taste the goodies they have.
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Scott,
I just ate my first Blue Pearmain- very interesting. Russet flavor: sweet, grassy, savory, cidery. Hard dense crunchy texture; fructose-like sweetness up front; fibrous knoshing at the back-end. They are big. One apple makes a meal.
They are having the festival again tomorrow too. The rain kept the crowds away today, so I had the barn of apples all to myself for half an hour. They have a bag or two of Blue Pearmains left if you make the trip.
We bought sweet cider, too. Their sweet cider is less syrupy than some, with more tartness.
Two weeks from now, they will have another weekend event- a pick-your-own invitation for the late October types.
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I just ate another Pixie Crunch apple. I cannot believe how good these apples are. They are amaze-balls. Truly among the top two most delicious fruits I’ve eaten all year, right up there with the Harvest Queen pears.
Pixie Crunch apples (small) next to a Blue Pearmain apple (big):
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We brought some PC back from the orchard, we liked them pretty good, tho yours seem to be better. But, these two orchards are prob 500mi apart, so that’s understandable.
That Blue Permain looks like a “one apple and your done for the day apple”.
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Okay Matt, where can I get it? Is it patented or can I obtain scionwood next spring?
Gold rush are comming in, already getting some good sugar on the tree. What a great apple so much flavor, defenetly hard to beat.
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PC are still patented, according to the Cummins site, but they do have quite a few trees for sale.
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that is the one thing I miss the most about not living up north. no apple orchards down here in Florida…
I sold one of my Granny Smith trees a couple years back and replaced it with a Pixie Crunch. I am really looking forward to sampling them someday. Out of those varieties in Matt’s photo, I have all but the Golden Russet. This year there Iius one Winesap, three Arkansas Black, and one more Rome Beauty. Next year we may get 30 or so varieties so taste…this year the frost got 'em. Just some rambling while waiting for a pilot car. Sold some sheep at auction and heading home now.
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I have a youngish (5th leaf) Pixie Crunch tree that fruited the past two seasons, quite generously for a still small (5’) tree. I probably left too many apples on this season, ~70, so not only were most a bit smaller than last season’s, but I may have runted the tree. I keep mine at 8’, so it may not be that big an issue. Anyway, it’s a really good apple, true to its name texturally with an approachable, balanced flavor and with very little sunburn in a year where many of the heirloom apples I fruited sunburned mildly to badly (ah, Karmijn, what could have been between us thus fall/winter 
). It’s a keeper in my area.
Another apple I fruited for the first time this year that really excites me (liked it more than the very likable PC this year) is one I don’t read about on fruit forums at all. Sir Prize, a PRI selection named in 1975, has Golden Delicious in it’s heritage twice and resembles that variety, though it’s a big improvement in flavor, and I really like a properly ripened home-grown GD. It’s sprightly-sweet with tender, crisp fine-grained flesh. I had a small crop of about a dozen fruits on a couple of branches I grafted to an existing young tree in 2013.
The only negatives were some bird problems before I was able to net the tree and a little sunburn on the most exposed fruit. I’d love to stash a hundred for the winter, as it’s supposed to keep six months under refrigeration. It’s worth a trial for folks in hot, dry summer climates for sure. Those of you with CAR and fire blight problems might think a bit harder on adding it, as it’s moderately susceptible to the former and susceptible to the latter.
If your conditions are right, don’t miss out on trialing this apple.
My Pixie Crunch the last two yrs have been good but not great. Too small but that’s not the major issue. Crunch is nice, fairly sweet, but nothing great for flavor. I’m grafting mine over to GoldRush, a much better apple here.
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Lots of exciting new varieties to taste this year. Most varieties are developing well even some on new grafts. It should be a very interesting winter full of new flavors.
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I use your same trick of putting the names on the fruit with markers. After forgetting the variety for the nth time I decided its better to do that, it makes for fast and easy marking in the field. I have a similar-looking pile in my fridge now.
Scott,
Exactly. I do that on the field with new varieties i am not familiar with. That way, when picked, they don’t get confused in the first years after grafting and i can decide if they are keepers and i should graft more or they can be replaced by better ones.
In the following years i may use a single letter or none at all when i know them well.
Melrose
Idared
New ones receive a special care and interest sometimes with their full name
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Nice looking harvest so far, J. I didn’t think apples would do so well in Portugal, due to the warm climate. Citrus, figs, olives- yes, but not apples. Guess the weather’s a bit more moderate than I thought. Are you up in the hills, or near the ocean?
You are thinking of the climate in the southern part of the country like Algarve.
I’m 30km from the ocean in the center of the country. The climate is temperate (summers highest temperature is usually 95 ºF and lowest in the winter around 29 ºF). In a normal year the number of chill hours is around 350-450h. I should have problems with some apple varieties that need more but they produce fine. This year was atypical and we probably had less than 250 chill hours. Peaches, Plums and others fruit types were very affect, most varieites didn’t produce a single fruit. Nevertheless, apple production is almost normal.
For instance here’s one of my Granny Smith trees:
And here’s the first pick of a tree from a Northern variety much appreciated over here (Bravo de Esmolfe) that, according to the text books, needs 900-1100 chilling hours:
I am lucky and can enjoy the best of both worlds. Figs, olive trees, citrus, but also apples, pears, plums, walnuts, etc… I’m even trying chestnuts which is pushing luck a bit, but we will see in a couple of years.
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