Hmmm. I bought a Grimes Golden upon impulse about 5 months ago for $16 in a 3 gallon pot. But, if your 7 gallon is ready to fruit next year, it may be worth the price.
Does anyone else sell Granny Smith (or any other apple) at your farmer market? Selling the same thing others are selling usually means less profitable sales.
Good luck in deciding. I usually buy bare root trees…used to anyhow… (but now mostly I get rootstocks and graft myself).
Redlove Calypso. Dropped on 9/25/21. In the fridge until 10/8/21 (2weeks).
Berry flavor, moderately juicy. Some tartness but not too much but did not detect any real sweetness (yet). Brix was 10!! First year fruit. Hope it will better next year.
Our farmers market doesn’t seem to bring in an apple buying crowd. We’ve been selling lots of fresh cider for several weeks now, but few apples. I thought it might be because we sell mostly heritage varieties people haven’t heard of and because they aren’t pretty due to our minimal spraying. But other venders have complained of low apples sales, too. Our best selling variety, if not a good selling variety, has been Macoun. Perhaps it fits in as a variety people know but don’t often see in stores.
That’s very pretty. 10 brix is good for a watermelon, but sounds pretty miserable for an apple.
It actually was not bad. My expectation was quite low based on other people’s input. I was surprised that it was not dry or very sour. Better than a few apples I have had. The berry flavor was nice.
Perhps you could lay out slices of your apples for passers-by to sample?
Offering samples has been successful before, except for battling yellow jackets, but New York Ag and Markets frowns on sampling at farmers markets since Covid.
@mamuang was kind enough to share some of her apples with me*, and requested that I share my thoughts. Of course, I completely neglected to take any pictures!
Bakers Delight Very crisp and sweet, with good base “apple” flavor. On top of that, it has cinnamon, vanilla, and honey flavors. What was interesting to me is how differently that flavor set presented in the two different apples. On one, the experience was a strong hit of cinnamon, followed by a strong hit of vanilla, with a touch of honey and the apple flavor underneath the whole time. The cinnamon and vanilla kind of hit you separately. Also, it wasn’t the full range of flavors found in vanilla and cinnamon so much as the critical essence of each one. The other apple, on the other hand, had some more range in the flavors, and they blended together more. The honey was also stronger. The net effect was that the flavor presented almost like a cola flavor, which was very interesting (the basic cola flavor is a blend of cinnamon, vanilla, and citrus). This apple may have been a bit sweeter as well, which could explain the difference.
Crunch A Bunch This one does what it says on the tin. It is very crunchy (more on that in a moment). The flavor is nice and sweet, low tartness, melon flavors with maybe a little spice on the finish. Back to the crunch. I’ve been thinking about how to describe this, as we don’t have a good vocabulary for describing crunch. There are a lot of crunchy things I’ve eaten; chips, apples, Asian pears, water chestnuts, pig’s ear, watermelon, pickles, celery, etc. All of these are crunchy, but I’d also say they have very distinctive textures. Cutting into these apples, you know right away it’s going to be crunchy. However, it’s not crunchy in quite the same way as most crunchy apples are. Since I take bigger bites than I should, some crunchy apples can hurt my mouth a bit. This did not. It had some yield to it, like Asian pear. I’d say the crunchiness in this case was like an intersection of typical apple crunch from a very crunchy apple and the crunch from a crisp Asian pear. The net effect is like a cartoon sound effect of eating crunchy food, without any hurt on the soft parts of my mouth, and it releases a lot of juices as you chew. VERY satisfying. I think the “grain” of the flesh helps with this. It’s not loose and mealy like a Red Delicious can be, but it’s definitely not as tight as some other very crunchy apples are.
Calville Blanc D’Hiver One of my all-time favorites. Tippy’s were very well grown, nice and sweet with a perfectly balanced acidity and that Platonic ideal “apple” flavor. This is more of a hard crunch apple. I ate this one fresh, but I’d like to note from my previous experience with this apple that as good as they are for fresh eating, they really come alive when baked. The texture holds up just right, and a nice champagne-like flavor emerges.
*Warning: Do not visit Tippy unless you enjoy top quality fruits and being overwhelmed with generosity!
Thanks for your detailed report and kind words. I may have tasted those flavors but did know know how to describe them!!
Baker’s Delight has been much improved this year. I like CaB and still call it an early Gold Rush.
Calville needs long hanging time. The ones that dropped two weeks ago were bland and tart. The well-ripened ones are very good. I have Suntan, Sun Crisp, Roxbury Russet and American Golden Russet that should ripen soon.
Due to our hectic schedule, we may not get around to do apple tasting this year. I am happy to give my home-grown apples to those who care about them. I offered them to some neighbors and they said “We don’t like apples”. 
WHAT??? 
Don’t like apples!? Their loss, I guess.
I finally got around to the Roxbury Russet over the weekend. Here are my thoughts:
This one had very good texture, medium crisp and juicy, only a little hard. Sweet, and every so slightly tart with a “juicy” apple flavor. At the end, there’s a hint of lemon flavor. Not the “this is assuredly and one-dimensionally lemon” flavor of instant lemonade or lemon balm, or even the more nuanced lemon verbena. This is more like the lemony aspect of true cinnamon*, very subtle and nuanced, but kind of adjacent to the main lemon flavors. I liked it a lot. Back to the texture, the skin was russeted and thin, which played off of the texture of the flesh really nicely. While the flavor is quite good, this apple is a textural feast. The skin also added another dimension to the flavor, similar to the flesh but shifted slightly.
*Note on cinnamon: most cinnamon we use is NOT actually cinnamon. It’s the closely related cassia, which has a stronger but simpler flavor. True cinnamon bark (often sold as Ceylon cinnamon or canela) is much thinner, is sold in thicker sticks, and has a nice multidimensional flavor, which often contains a lemony component. I find the flavor profile goes even better with apples than common “cinnamon”, especially because of the lemony part. It’s exciting to find that lemony component already in the apple! If you can get your hands on some true cinnamon, go for it and try it out.
Note on my note: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with cassia. It’s a great flavor and it’s what most of us know as cinnamon. Younger, cockier me would have probably made a huff about “well, it’s not the real stuff, so why use it?” But older, questionably wiser me realizes that each one has its place.
Your taste buds are way more complex than mine.
I don’t know how ripe was the Roxbury Russet I gave you. They seemed to drop at different time several days apart. I also have one more still on another grafted tree. This one was larger than others.
I have one fruit of Blenheim Orange. It is new to me this year so that’s exciting,
Alps Otome, a Japanese cultivar. An OP seedling of Fuji. The pollen parent is an unknown crab.
At its largest, this is not a large apple, but mine are very small because my graft is small.
The flavor is superb. Crispy and a bit tart fresh off the tree, it mellows into a traditional apple flavor and texture, which makes it taste more like an old English cultivar.
Look like a large crab apple😄
Yes, but better tasting.
A friend gave me the scionwood of Suntan. Prior to that, I did not know about it.
It is a late apple. First one dropped today. It has coarse skin like a russeted apple.
Cummins sings high praises of it. This is what Cummins said about Suntan.
Last apple hanging in the orchard. On one branch of tree with four varieties.
Piel de Sapa (Toadskin), a Spanish cider apple. A friend who obtained it because of its name gave me an extra stick of scionwood. First year fruiting (two apples). Picked the first one a week and a half ago.Wow, all done already? I still have several hanging on. Crunch A Bunch, Sundance, Suntan, A. Golden Russet, Victoria and Black Limbertwig, Orin, my two Gold Rush, etc. They are late apples and very late this year.
My Suntan on the tree. It is not solid red. It is more orangey and the color is not evenly distributed.
