Claygate was picked October 2, the earliest I have picked it so far. 14 Brix & likely to keep rising in storage. A few years ago I opened one just after Christmas to find 24 Brix! sufficient tartness to keep the delivery even handed.
This tree needed drastic pruning (my fault, not it’s own) & I finally got around to that in 2023. With heavy cutting back, it wasn’t likely to make any fruit this year, but: lo & behold, five good size & so tasty!
Nice to know what Claygate looks like
Claygate lenticels are a little bit rough. I consider it ruggedly handsome.
“Ruggedly handsome”, I like that.
Here’s my Herefordshire Russet. Large apple with a balanced taste and firm texture (not crunchy).
@MDL17576 hey there, looking at your old post im wondering if you spray your Hewes crab? How has it done with disease?
this time of year, I have only babies slowly ripening
trailman, chestnut , gravenstein.
is anyone growing winter banana? how is the flavor? I’m letting the tree carry 2 or 3 fruits this year on its second leaf because it grew so much last year. I’m curious about flavor with them
I ate Winter Banana from a farm. It kinda bland but I thought it may have been under ripe. This is a down year apple-wise for me. If you want a goid and productive apple, try Calville Blanc d’Hiver. It set fruit every year. The fruit tastes good and it’s good for cooking,too.
well the winter banana is in ground as a place to graft various things onto. so I will likely only keep one or two branches of it, but I will let you know how they are ripe and when. it’s the first year of fruit so I have low expectations regardless 
is calville good fresh eaten or only stored or cooked? I have not had it
Although Calville Blanc is famous for a good cooking apple, I like eating them fresh. I think it is a tasty apple. If you want scionwood, pm me.
I grow Winter Banana. It is a beautiful looking apple. I use it mainly for being a pollinator for that section of my orchard. The flavor is mild but tasty, not overly crisp ( not like a Honeycrisp). I have not tasted any banana notes when I eat them. It has a color more like a banana.
I use them to make apple crisps in the fall. They do bruise a little more easily than some other apples.
I hope this helps some.
I agree with you about the Calville Blanc being a good eating and a good cooking/baking apple. I do enjoy eating them fresh as well. Mine just started producing a decent amount of apples two years go. I kept checking them every few days when it was close to supposedly being ripe. It has been a weird few years with weather ( mostly extremely high temps and a horrible drought last year) so finding a " normal" ripening time here is still a toss up.
I have a decent amount of Calville Blanc apples on my tree this year, so far. Love how they have the extreme lobes on them.
FYI, I still have a few Calville Blanc apples left that I stored in an extra fridge. They still taste pretty good. I have horses and they liked the ones I have fed them the last couple of weeks. If they were not very good they would spit them out. They have not spit them out yet.
Twice in the past decade I bought a few Calville Blanc d’Hiver from Feil Pioneer Fruit Stand in East Wenatchee. Their orchard is on the east bank of the Columbia River, right by the water. Mealy & tasteless picked mid-October. These two encounters make me question whether or not it can do well here in the hot & dry.
Some day I hope to try it Way East.
Its a northern apple. Mine died!
Which apple tree died on you?
Is there anything special about the Hawaii that makes it better than the Golden D?
There are several strains of GD. I never grew one. I had Golden Delicious from You Pick orchards (we have many You Pick/Pick Your Own around here). It tasted fine but nothing special. Maybe, I picked them underripe? I feel that Hawaii is more flavorful. I picked my Hawaii in Oct and liked how it tasted. It skipped this year. Need to wait another year to taste it again.
Hawaii, which also has Gravenstein parentage, has some tropical taste components that the standard GD lacks. I’ve seen reports that these are more pronounced in samples grown on the West Coast compared to those from further east. I can’t speak to that, but they’re excellent here on the Marin County coast, less than an hour from where they were bred in Sebastopol (Sonoma County).
Here in north central Arizona it has been one of my favorites. Needs little to no care and produces a very nice medium sized apple. I would also rate Mother, Rubinette, King David, and Melrose as above average low maintenance apples.
