I am delighted to learn this is an easy apple to grow. That’s probably why a second orchard near me now carries it. (And i bought an enormous bag of “utility grade” crimson crisp apples from them for $22. Thus my using it for pies this year.)
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My GS used to be the first apple to bloom for me–until I acquired several red fleshed apples. Could be part of the reason it’s fruit set seemed very light.
Odysso is perhaps my prettiest in bloom. Blackish buds open to a carmine type color.
Quite a number are fragrant, though fragrance isn’t pronounced in the pink and red blooms.
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I have an Antonovka seedling that might bloom first time this year…it is about 10 feet x 10 feet in size. (Had a purple leafed Antonovka seedling, but the deer ate it…and I may have lost it…or it might sprout from the root.)
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@alan . I am in 3a/b USDA, 4a/b Canada. I really like Crimson Crisp but lost my Bud 9 tree to borer. Have regrafted onto a couple Bud118 rootstocks as well as some mature crabs. In my climate it is definitely a more low vigour variety and is a really straggly grower with tons of small, twisting branches all over. The apples are super hard and crisp and hold 3+ weeks on the tree with excellent flavour. Might be slightly limit of hardiness in my zone as well but I have some Bud 118 that are now 4+ years in the ground and think the roots are starting to drive some better growth, check back with my reports in a couple years.
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This is just a plain apple tart.
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DragonflyLane: Your situation is radically different from Blueberrie’s concerning rots, due to humidity, mostly. Instead, your climate is closer to my own in far eastern WA. Granny Smith does beautifully here, picked generally the third week of October, although if you pick them slightly under ripe they (like most apples) will keep significantly longer.
When Granny Smith is picked at ripeness here, it begins to go from green to cream skin color already & will have some pink to burgundy blush on those that get significant sun. Some might get sunburn (AKA sunscald) if they get too much sunshine. It will taste something like those green things in the supermarket but with greater complexity & sugars. I have never kept them beyond February, because I generally have other apples in reserve for later keeping, so cannot say they will keep longer than that.
The other reason they don’t keep through winter in my house is they make a nice addition to pie.
As to watercore, that is a condition of glassy translucence in the flesh of extreme load of sugar. (Others on this forum can tell you more educated facts about watercore.) I find the apple degrades and begins to rot within fairly quickly if watercore develops. Some apple varieties are more prone to get it than others. I have not seen it in Granny Smith. Seems to me it is one sign of becoming over ripe, which in most varieties also contributes to a loss of flavor.
If I could not get Granny Smith easily in an orchard near me, it would be a prime candidate to grow. As it is, I have introduced Northern Spy, Spokane Beauty, Claygate, Gold Rush & Sundance to that orchard, returning the favor.
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I enjoyed eating Granny Smith as a child, I still love sweet and sour things.
My in-laws have a Granny tree, I just skipped it for now as I already have over 20 apple trees to contend with this coming Spring.
I do have Claygate and Goldrush plus Spigold and Suntan coming, which might be related to Sundance?
Nothing plain about that tart, Mrs. G.!
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If you ask if any of the five apples you listed in that sentence are related, Sundance & Gold Rush are to some extent. I have copied the lineages of both of them, which show early in the breeding program of Purdue, Rutgers & U. of Illinois (PRI). Rome x Malus floribunda and the next generation two seedlings are then crossed. A seedling of that cross appears in both of the next crossings: McIntosh leading two generations later to Sundance (1964), while Golden Delicious leads through three more crossings to get Gold Rush (1993).
(There are several other apples in the mix for both, including a wild card for Gold Rush: Winesap open-pollinated. That means the Winesap seedling used has an unidentified pollen parent. Now there’s a question…)
If this is the question you pose: Is Suntan related to Sundance? No. Suntan is Court Pendu Plat x Cox Orange Pippin, Britain 1956. (Huge flavor, perhaps more than Gold Rush or Claygate. Suntan may be your slowest apple tree to produce fruit, besides likely to be the latest blooming.)
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Thanks for your input. Much appreciated. 
I am okay waiting for good apples, I am hopeful because one of my apple trees came with a nice size apple already on it, so I cannot be THAT far away from getting apples from some or at least one of the trees…
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It is difficult to find lard that doesn’t have additives. Short of rendering it myself, I have gone to using butter
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You just about have to know a rancher. Possibly a small meat locker operation, if you can find one that breaks down their own carcasses.
i butcher at a local cattle farm that has just built their own processing plant, so i have access to unlimited fat to render. we just made a huge batch. once they get their farm stand built next year. they plan to sell beef tallow and lard. if you place your tallow in hot water, the impurities your strainer misses will stay in the water and the fat will be on top once it cools. with the impurities out, it is shelf stable sealed in glass for 1 year. longer if refrigerated. she also wants to experiment with smoking the tallow in her new pellet smoker.
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Just a heads up, I do have Baldwin scion if you’d like it. I have a list in the Trading section.
Hey, thanks. But i already grow more apples than i have sun for. I may try to find a local grower who can sell me a couple of apples in the fall, i mean.
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Also decades ago, a friend/next-door-neighbor worked for a home for delinquent boys (or something like that), and they received government-issued food supplies. They got so much lard that was not being used that he felt justified in bringing some home. It was in a block, but was the equivalent of three or four large Crisco jars. He used it well past the expiration date, but never seemed to mind. I borrowed some for a pie crust and found this lard off-putting and threw it out. That experience, and my mother never using lard, led to my never buying lard in my life. In my younger days I used Crisco or margarine for pie crusts, but I’ve used only butter for pie crusts for a couple of decades.
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I believe there are different “grades” of lard. The better grade is used for better home cooking. My grandmother had a 5 gallon metal tub of lard next to her stove and used it for basically everything cooking wise. It was white and had a red hog logo on it.
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Evidently I always encountered high quality lard as a youth and it tasted great in pastries. Either Leaf Lard or Rendered.
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my mother used lard, then crisco later on. if its rendered slowly then filtered well there is 0 noticeable flavor in lard. for pies though, i too use butter. for everything else i used lard, tallow or olive oil. fried up some tiger prawn from S.C frozen in tubs in water in lard. they were delicious. I realize there’s more fat in rendered oils but the carcinogens in seed oils to me are far more dangerous. cancers everywhere in every are group nowadays. my cousins daughters 29 and has leukemia. she has a 8 and a 5 yr. old. her grandmother has cancer as well. my wife lost 2 uncles to cancer just this year. i can go on and on.
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Ive heard good things about prarie spy, but ive always used haralson for pies. Can someone who has used both tell me how they differ when it comes to cooking?